Joshua Writes the Covenant

Joshua 23 and 24

     Joshua was captain of the people of Israel. After Moses died, he took the people across the Jordan into the promised land. When he was a very old man, he told the elders of Israel, "I am old and ready to die." Then he called all the people of Israel to come together at a place called Shechem.

     "This is what God says to tell you," he told the people, "God brought you out of slavery in Egypt and brought you across the Red Sea when Pharaoh's armies were chasing you. You lived in the desert a long time. Then God brought you across the Jordan River to this good land."

     "Now," Joshua told them, "you must serve God faithfully. You must not worship the false gods that our grandparents worshiped in Egypt or the false gods of Canaan."

     Joshua looked at the people, "As for me," he said, "and the people of my family, we will serve the Lord God."

     "We will serve God, too!" the people answered. "God has taken care of us, and this is our God, too."

     "Then throw away any idols of false gods that you have and obey the Lord." 

     They answered, "We will serve and obey the Lord our God, and no one else."

     So Joshua made a covenant with God for the people. He wrote all the things down in the book of the law of God. Then he put a large stone up under an oak tree in the holy place of the Lord.

     "This stone has heard all you said, "Joshua shouted, "If you turn against the Lord your God, it will be a witness against you!"

     Then Joshua sent the people to their own homes. When he was a hundred and ten years old, he died. The people buried him on his own land in the hill country at a place called Timnath-serah. And for many years after that, the people of Israel obeyed the Lord God.