Josué 23

Joshua’s charge to the leaders of Israel

¹A long time afterward, when the LORD had given Israel rest from every enemy on all sides, and Joshua was old and well along in years, ²Joshua called together all Israel, their elders, leaders, judges and officials, and said to them, “I am now old and well along in years. ³You yourselves have seen everything the LORD your God has done to all these nations on your account. It is the LORD your God himself who has been fighting for you. ⁴Look, I have given out to you by lot the land of these nations that remain, as an inheritance for your tribes, together with the land of all the nations I have already destroyed, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west. ⁵The LORD your God himself will push them back ahead of you and drive them out of your way, and you will take possession of their land, just as the LORD your God has promised you. ⁶So be very strong, and keep and carry out everything written in the book of the law of Moses, without turning aside from it to the right or to the left, ⁷so that you do not mix with these nations that are left among you. Do not even speak the names of their gods, or make anyone swear by them. Do not serve them or bow down to them. ⁸Instead, hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have done up to now. ⁹The LORD has driven out great and powerful nations ahead of you, and to this day no one has been able to stand against you. ¹⁰One of your men can put a thousand to flight, because the LORD your God himself fights for you, as he promised you. ¹¹So be very careful, for your own sake, to love the LORD your God. ¹²For if you ever turn away and attach yourselves to what is left of these nations that remain among you, if you intermarry with them and mix with them and they with you, ¹³you can be sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive these nations out ahead of you. They will become a trap and a snare for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you are wiped out from this good land the LORD your God has given you. ¹⁴Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with your whole heart and your whole being that not a single word has fallen short of all the good words the LORD your God spoke about you. Every one has come to pass for you; not one word of it has fallen short. ¹⁵But just as every good thing that the LORD your God promised you has come to you, so the LORD will bring on you every evil thing he has threatened, until he has destroyed you and you are gone from this good land that the LORD your God has given you. ¹⁶If you break the covenant of the LORD your God, which he laid on you, and go off to serve other gods and bow down to them, the anger of the LORD will blaze against you, and you will quickly be wiped out from the good land he has given you.”