Hello, this is Father Paul and I'm glad we're taking this journey together to read the Bible
in a year.
Today's reading is the end of the book of Joshua chapters 23 and 24.
Chapter 23
Now it came to pass a long time after the LORD had given rest to Israel from all their
enemies round about, that Joshua was old, advanced in age, and Joshua called for all
Israel, for their elders, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers,
and said to them, I am old, advanced in age.
You have seen all that the LORD your God has done to all these nations because of you.
For the LORD your God is he who has fought for you.
See I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your
tribes, from the Jordan with all the nations that I have cut off as far as the great sea
westward.
And the LORD your God will expel them from before you and drive them out of your sight,
so you shall possess their land, as the LORD your God promised you.
Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the
law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left, and lest
you go among these nations these who remain among you.
You shall not make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them.
You shall not serve them, nor bow down to them.
But you shall hold fast to the LORD your God as you have done to this day.
For the LORD has driven out from before you great and strong nations, but as for you no
one has been able to stand against you to this day.
One man of you shall chase a thousand, for the LORD your God is he who fights for you,
as he promised you.
Therefore take careful heed to yourselves that you love the LORD your God, or else if
indeed you do go back and cling to the remnant of these nations, these that remain among
you, and make marriages with them and go into them and they to you.
Know for certain that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations from before
you, but they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides and thorns
in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the LORD your God has given you.
Behold this day I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts
and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the LORD
your God spoke concerning you.
All have come to pass for you, not one word of them has failed.
Therefore it shall come to pass that as all the good things have come upon you which the
LORD your God promised you, so the LORD will bring upon you all harmful things until he
has destroyed you from this good land which the LORD your God has given you.
When you have transgressed the covenant of the LORD your God which he commanded you and
have gone and served other gods and bowed down to them, then the anger of the LORD will
burn against you and you shall perish quickly from the good land which he has given you.
Chapter 24 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel
to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for
their officers, and they presented themselves before God.
And Joshua said to all the people, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, your fathers, including
Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the river
in old times, and they served other gods.
Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, led him throughout all
the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants, and gave him Isaac.
To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau, to Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess.
But Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.
Also I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt according to what I did among them.
Afterward I brought you out.
Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea, and the Egyptians
pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea.
So they cried out to the LORD, and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, brought
the sea upon them, and covered them.
And your eyes saw what I did in Egypt.
Then you dwelt in the wilderness a long time, and I brought you into the land of the Amorites,
who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and they fought with you.
But I gave them into your hand, that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them from
before you.
Then Balak the son of Zippor king of Moab arose to make war against Israel, and sent
and called Balam the son of Beor to curse you.
But I would not listen to Balam, therefore he continued to bless you, so I delivered
you out of his hand.
Then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the men of Jericho fought against
you, also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites,
the Hevites, and the Jebusites.
But I delivered them into your hand.
I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, also the two kings
of the Amorites, but not with your sword or with your bow.
I have given you a land from which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build,
and you dwell in them, you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.
Now therefore fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods
which your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt.
Serve the Lord.
And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will
serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the
river or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
So the people answered and said, Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to
serve other gods.
For the Lord our God is he who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt,
from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all
the way that we went, and among all the people through whom we passed.
And the Lord drove out from before us all the people including the Amorites who dwelt
in the land.
We also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.
But Joshua said to the people, You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God.
He is a jealous God.
He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.
If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and
consume you, after he has done you good.
And the people said to Joshua, No, but we will serve the Lord.
So Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves, that you have chosen the
Lord for yourselves to serve him.
And they said, We are witnesses.
Now therefore he said, Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your
heart to the Lord God of Israel.
And the people said to Joshua, The Lord our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey.
So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and
an ordinance in Shechem.
Then Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and he took a large stone
and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.
And Joshua said to all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it
has heard all the words of the Lord which he spoke to us.
It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.
So Joshua led the people depart each to his own inheritance.
Now it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the
Lord died, being 110 years old.
And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timna Sera, which is in the
mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash.
Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived
Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which he had done for Israel.
The bones of Joseph which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried
at Shechem, in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father
of Shechem for one hundred pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the
children of Joseph.
And Eliezer the son of Aaron died, they buried him in a hill belonging to Phineas his son,
which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim.
I hope you enjoyed today's reading as much as I did, and I look forward to seeing you
again tomorrow to continue on our journey.
God bless you and have a great day.