Joshua 1:7-8

1:7 Make sure you are ¹  very strong and brave! Carefully obey ²  all the law my servant Moses charged you to keep! ³  Do not swerve from it to the right or to the left, so that you may be successful ⁴  in all you do. ⁵  1:8 This law scroll must not leave your lips! ⁶  You must memorize it ⁷  day and night so you can carefully obey ⁸  all that is written in it. Then you will prosper ⁹  and be successful. ¹⁰ 

Joshua 3:4

3:4 But stay about three thousand feet behind it. ¹¹  Keep your distance ¹²  so you can see ¹³  which way you should go, for you have not traveled this way before.”

¹ tn Or “Only be.”

² tn Heb “so you can be careful to do.” The use of the infinitive לִשְׁמֹר (lishmor, “to keep”) after the imperatives suggests that strength and bravery will be necessary for obedience. Another option is to take the form לִשְׁמֹר as a vocative lamed (ל) with imperative (see Isa 38:20 for an example of this construction), which could be translated, “Indeed, be careful!”

³ tn Heb “commanded you.”

⁴ tn Heb “be wise,” but the word can mean “be successful” by metonymy.

⁵ tn Heb “in all which you go.”

⁶ tn Heb “mouth.”

⁷ tn Heb “read it in undertones,” or “recite it quietly” (see HALOT 1:237).

⁸ tn Heb “be careful to do.”

⁹ tn Heb “you will make your way prosperous.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “and be wise,” but the word can mean “be successful” by metonymy.

¹¹ tn Heb “But there should be a distance between you and it, about two thousand cubits in measurement.”

¹² tn Heb “do not approach it.”

¹³ tn Heb “know.”