Joshua
Chapter 5
1 When all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings by the sea learned that God had dried up the Jordan River so the Israelites could cross, their hearts sank, and they lost their courage because of the Israelites.
2 At that time, God told Joshua, “Make sharp knives and circumcise the Israelites once more.”
3 Joshua made sharp knives and circumcised the Israelites at Foreskin Hill.
4 Joshua circumcised the people because all the men who had left Egypt, the soldiers, had died in the desert after leaving Egypt.
5 All the people who had left Egypt were circumcised, but those born in the desert during the journey from Egypt were not circumcised.
6 The Israelites traveled in the desert for forty years until all the fighting men who left Egypt had died because they did not listen to God. God had promised he would not let them see the land he had told their ancestors he would give to us, a land filled with milk and honey.
7 Joshua circumcised their children who replaced them because they were not circumcised since it was not done during their journey.
8 After they circumcised everyone, they stayed in their camp spots until they were healed.
9 God said to Joshua, “Today I have taken away the shame of Egypt from you. That’s why the place is named Gilgal to this day.”
10 The Israelites camped at Gilgal and celebrated Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month in the Jericho plains.
11 They ate the old grain from the land the day after Passover, unleavened bread, and roasted grain on that very day.
12 The manna stopped the day after they ate the old grain of the land; the Israelites no longer had manna; instead, they ate the crops from Canaan that year.
13 When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a sword in his hand. Joshua approached him and asked, “Are you on our side or the side of our enemies?”
14 He said, “No, but as the leader of God’s army, I have now come.” Then Joshua bowed down to the ground, worshiped, and said to him, “What does my Lord want to tell his servant?”
15 The leader of God’s army told Joshua, “Take off your shoe from your foot; because the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did that.