³ Moses came and told the people all the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances. Then all the people responded with a single voice, “We will do everything that the Lord has commanded.”^{(A) 4} And Moses wrote^(B) down all the words of the Lord. He rose early the next morning and set up an altar and 12 pillars for the 12 tribes of Israel at the base of the mountain. ⁵ Then he sent out young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. ⁶ Moses took half the blood and set it in basins; the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. ⁷ He then took the covenant scroll and read it aloud to the people. They responded, “We will do and obey everything that the Lord has commanded.”

⁸ Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you concerning all these words.”^(C)

The Covenant Renewal

¹⁴ “Therefore, fear the Lord and worship Him in sincerity and truth.^(A) Get rid of the gods your fathers worshiped^(B) beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and worship Yahweh. ¹⁵ But if it doesn’t please you to worship Yahweh, choose for yourselves today the one you will worship: the gods your fathers worshiped beyond the Euphrates River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living.^(C) As for me and my family, we will worship Yahweh.”

¹⁶ The people replied, “We will certainly not abandon the Lord to worship other gods! ¹⁷ For the Lord our God brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery,^(D) and performed these great signs before our eyes. He also protected us all along the way we went and among all the peoples whose lands we traveled through. ¹⁸ The Lord drove out before us all the peoples, including the Amorites who lived in the land. We too will worship the Lord, because He is our God.”

¹⁹ But Joshua told the people, “You will not be able to worship Yahweh, because He is a holy God. He is a jealous God;^(E) He will not remove your transgressions and sins.^{(F) 20} If you abandon the Lord and worship foreign gods, He will turn against you, harm you, and completely destroy^(G) you, after He has been good to you.”

²¹ “No!” the people answered Joshua. “We will worship the Lord.”

²² Joshua then told the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you yourselves have chosen to worship Yahweh.”

“We are witnesses,” they said.

²³ “Then get rid of the foreign gods that are among you and offer your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

²⁴ So the people said to Joshua, “We will worship the Lord our God and obey Him.”

²⁵ On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people at Shechem and established a statute and ordinance for them. ²⁶ Joshua recorded these things in the book of the law of God;^(H) he also took a large stone and set it up there under the oak next to the sanctuary of the Lord. ²⁷ And Joshua said to all the people, “You see this stone—it will be a witness against us,^(I) for it has heard all the words the Lord said to us, and it will be a witness against you, so that you will not deny your God.” ²⁸ Then Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance.