but we will maintain ourselves in armed readiness ¹  and go before the Israelites until whenever we have brought them to their place. Our descendants will be living in fortified towns as a protection against ²  the inhabitants of the land.

The community must deliver the slayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood, and the community must restore him to the town of refuge to which he fled, and he must live there ¹  until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the consecrated oil.

So all of you approached me and said, “Let’s send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there.”

What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage ¹  by describing people who are more numerous ²  and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven ³  itself! Moreover, they said they saw ⁴  Anakites ⁵  there.”

From Aroer, ¹  which is at the edge of Wadi Arnon (it is the city in the wadi), ²  all the way to Gilead there was not a town able to resist us – the Lord our God gave them all to us.

Anyone who accidentally killed someone ¹  without hating him at the time of the accident ²  could flee to one of those cities and be safe.

Then when the Lord your God brings you to the land he promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you – a land with large, fine cities you did not build,

you must by all means ¹  slaughter the inhabitants of that city with the sword; annihilate ²  with the sword everyone in it, as well as the livestock.

You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza ¹  and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin ²  forever – it must never be rebuilt again.

Suppose he goes with someone else ¹  to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax ²  to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose ³  from the handle and strikes ⁴  his fellow worker ⁵  so hard that he dies. The person responsible ⁶  may then flee to one of these cities to save himself. ⁷ 

and then you are careful to observe all these commandments ¹  I am giving ²  you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities ³  to these three.

However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city – all its plunder – you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you.

If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, ¹  you must not chop down its trees, ²  for you may eat fruit ³  from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it! ⁴ 

However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, ¹  and you may use it to build siege works ²  against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.

and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water, ¹  to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. ²  There at the wadi they are to break the heifer’s neck.

the men of her city must bring the young woman to the door of her father’s house and stone her to death, for she has done a disgraceful thing ¹  in Israel by behaving like a prostitute while living in her father’s house. In this way you will purge ²  evil from among you.

the water coming downstream toward them stopped flowing. ¹  It piled up far upstream ²  at Adam (the city near Zarethan); there was no water at all flowing to the sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea). ³  The people crossed the river opposite Jericho. ⁴ 

When you hear the signal from the ram’s horn, ¹  have the whole army give a loud battle cry. ²  Then the city wall will collapse ³  and the warriors should charge straight ahead.” ⁴ 

The city and all that is in it must be set apart for the Lord, ¹  except for Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house, because she hid the spies ²  we sent.

At that time Joshua made this solemn declaration: ¹  “The man who attempts to rebuild ²  this city of Jericho ³  will stand condemned before the Lord. ⁴  He will lose his firstborn son when he lays its foundations and his youngest son when he erects its gates!” ⁵