The Israelites were satisfied with their report and gave thanks to God. They said nothing more about launching an attack to destroy the land in which the Reubenites and Gadites lived.

Israel worshiped the Lord throughout Joshua’s lifetime and as long as the elderly men who outlived him remained alive. These men had experienced firsthand everything the Lord had done for Israel.

The king of Jericho received this report: “Note well! Israelite men have come here tonight to spy on the land.”

Bright and early the next morning Joshua and the Israelites left Shittim and came to the Jordan. They camped there before crossing the river.

Now select for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one per tribe.

Joshua summoned the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one per tribe.

The Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over armed for battle ahead of the Israelites, just as Moses had instructed them.

That day the Lord brought honor to Joshua before all Israel. They respected him all his life, just as they had respected Moses.

He told the Israelites, “When your children someday ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones represent?’

At that time the Lord told Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites once again.”

So the Israelites camped in Gilgal and celebrated the Passover in the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the plains of Jericho.

The manna stopped appearing the day they ate some of the produce of the land; the Israelites never ate manna again.

But be careful when you are setting apart the riches for the Lord. If you take any of it, you will make the Israelite camp subject to annihilation and cause a disaster.

Achan told Joshua, “It is true. I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel in this way:

They took it all from the middle of the tent, brought it to Joshua and all the Israelites, and placed it before the Lord.

Bright and early the next morning Joshua gathered the army, and he and the leaders of Israel marched at the head of it to Ai.

When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that the city was going up in smoke, they turned around and struck down the men of Ai.

But Israel did plunder the cattle and the goods of the city, in accordance with the Lord’s orders to Joshua.

There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua inscribed on the stones a duplicate of the law written by Moses.

They came to Joshua at the camp in Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land. Make a treaty with us.”