Joshua’s Charge to Leaders
1 After many days, when the Lord had given rest to Israel from their enemies all around them, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, 2 Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders and for their heads, and for their judges and for their officers, and said to them, “I am old and well advanced in years. 3 You have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. 4 I have allotted to you these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, to the great sea toward the sunset. 5 The Lord your God will thrust them out from before you and drive them from out of your sight. You shall possess their land, as the Lord your God spoke to you.
6 Therefore be very courageous and be careful to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that you not turn away from it to the right or to the left, 7 that you not come among these nations, these that remain among you. Neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor swear by them. Neither serve them, nor bow down to them, 8 but hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day.
9 For the Lord has driven great and strong nations out from before you. But as for you, no man has stood before you to this day. 10 One of you shall chase a thousand, for it is the Lord your God who fights for you, as he has spoken to you. 11 Take careful heed therefore, to love the Lord your God.
12 But if you do at all go back and hold fast to the remnant of these nations, these who remain among you and enter into marriages with them and go in to them and they to you, 13 know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight, but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a scourge in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you.
14 Today I am going the way of all the earth. All of you know in your heart and soul that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you. Of everything that has been promised to you, not one thing is unfulfilled. 15 It shall happen that as all the good things that have come to you of which the Lord your God spoke to you, so the Lord will bring to you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you, 16 when you disobey the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you.”