Joshua 3-4

New Catholic Bible

Chapter 3

Instructions before the Crossing. ¹ Joshua and all of the Israelites rose early the next morning and set out for Shittim, arriving at the Jordan where they camped before they crossed over it. ² Three days later the leaders of the people passed through the camp ³ giving orders to the people saying, “When you see the priests and Levites carrying the Ark of the Lord, your God, set out from where you are and follow after it. ⁴ Maintain a distance of about two thousand cubits^[a] between it and yourselves; do not approach it too closely. Thus you will know the way you are to go, for you have never passed this way before.” ⁵ Joshua said to the priests, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will perform wondrous deeds in your midst.”^{[b] 6} Joshua also said to the priests, “Pick up the Ark of the Covenant and pass on in front of the people.” So they picked up the Ark of the Covenant and went on ahead of the people.

⁷ The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all of Israel, so that they may know that I will treat you the same way that I treated Moses. ⁸ Say to the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant: ‘Approach the edge of the water and stand in the Jordan.’ ” ⁹ Joshua instructed the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord, your God.” ¹⁰ Joshua continued, “This is how you will know that there is a living God among you who will drive out the Canaanites,^[c] the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites from before you. ¹¹ Behold, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth will pass before you into the Jordan. ¹² Choose twelve men from out of the tribes of Israel, one man from each tribe. ^13 [d]As soon as the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, set their feet down in the water, the waters of the Jordan will stop flowing downstream and will mount up in a heap.”

¹⁴ Crossing over the Jordan. When the people broke camp to cross over the Jordan, the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant went on ahead of them. ¹⁵ Now the Jordan was at its flood stage during the entire harvest season, but as soon as the priests carrying the Ark stepped into the Jordan, ¹⁶ the waters from upstream stopped flowing. They stood up in a mound quite a distance away, at a town called Adam, near Zarethan. The waters that were flowing downstream to the Arabah (the Salt Sea) disappeared entirely, so the people were able to cross over the Jordan. ¹⁷ The priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord were standing on dry ground right in the middle of the Jordan. All of the Israelites passed over on dry ground until the entire people had crossed over the Jordan.

Chapter 4

The Twelve Memorial Stones. ¹ When the entire people had passed over the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying, ² “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each of the tribes, ³ and tell them to take twelve stones from the bed of the Jordan where the priests had been standing, and to carry them over with you, depositing them at the place where you will be camping this evening.”

⁴ So Joshua called the twelve men together whom the Israelites had chosen, one man from each tribe, ⁵ and Joshua said to them, “Cross over in front of the Ark of the Lord, your God, into the middle of the Jordan and have each man place a rock on his shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites. ^6 [e]These will serve as a reminder for you when, in the future, your children ask, ‘What is the meaning of these stones?’ ⁷ you will answer them, ‘The waters of the Jordan stopped flowing before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan ceased to flow.’ These stones will be a memorial to the Israelites forever.”

⁸ The Israelites did just what Joshua had commanded them to do. They picked up twelve stones from the Jordan’s riverbed, just as the Lord had instructed Joshua to do, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, and they brought them out to the place where they were camping that night and they laid them down there. ⁹ Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the Jordan’s riverbed, where the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant had been standing. They are still there today.

¹⁰ Now the priests who were carrying the Ark stood in the middle of the Jordan until everything that the Lord had directed Joshua to tell the people had been done, the things that Moses had ordered Joshua to do. The people hurried over, ¹¹ and when all the people had completed the crossing, the Ark of the Lord passed over, and the priests crossed over in front of the people. ¹² The men of Reuben, the men of Gad, and the men of one of the halves of the tribe of Manasseh passed in front of the Israelites, clad in battle gear, as Moses had instructed them to do. ¹³ About forty thousand men clad in battle gear passed over before the Lord into the plains of Jericho to do battle. ¹⁴ That day the Lord exalted Joshua before all of Israel. They revered him as long as he lived, even as they had revered Moses.

¹⁵ The Lord then said to Joshua, ¹⁶ “Tell the priests who are carrying the Ark of Testimony^[f] to come up out of the Jordan.” ¹⁷ So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” ¹⁸ So the priests, carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, came up out of the Jordan. As soon as the priests’ feet touched dry land, the waters of the Jordan returned back to their place, flowing at flood stage as they had before.

^19 [g]The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month,^[h] and they camped at Gilgal to the east of Jericho. ²⁰ Joshua erected the twelve stones that had been taken out of the Jordan at Gilgal. ²¹ He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your children ask their fathers, ‘What is the meaning of these stones?’ ²² tell your children, ‘Israel crossed over the Jordan on dry land.’ ²³ The Lord, your God, dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you could cross over, just as the Lord, your God, had dried up the Red Sea before us until we had crossed over it. ²⁴ He did this so that everyone upon the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is mighty and so that you might always fear the Lord, your God.”