This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he ¹  will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess.

The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone.

Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair.

Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

“When you have experienced all these things, both the blessings and the curses ¹  I have set before you, you will reflect upon them ²  in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you.

What ¹  I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess. ² 

I declare to you this very day that you will certainly ¹  perish! You will not extend your time in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. ² 

Then their children, who have not known this law, ¹  will also hear about and learn to fear the Lord your God for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “You are about to die, ¹  and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they ²  are going. They ³  will reject ⁴  me and break my covenant that I have made with them. ⁵ 

For this is no idle word for you – it is your life! By this word you will live a long time in the land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.”

Joshua son of Nun sent two spies out from Shittim secretly and instructed them: ¹  “Find out what you can about the land, especially Jericho.” ²  They stopped at the house of a prostitute named Rahab and spent the night there. ³ 

The Israelites did just as Joshua commanded. They picked up twelve stones, according to the number of the Israelite tribes, from the middle of the Jordan as the Lord had instructed Joshua. They carried them over with them to the camp and put them there.

Joshua also set up twelve stones ¹  in the middle of the Jordan in the very place where the priests carrying the ark of the covenant stood. They remain there to this very day.

Joshua told the two men who had spied on the land, “Enter the prostitute’s house ¹  and bring out the woman and all who belong to her as you promised her.” ² 

They returned and reported to Joshua, ¹  “Don’t send the whole army. ²  About two or three thousand men are adequate to defeat Ai. ³  Don’t tire out the whole army, for Ai is small.” ⁴ 

At sunset Joshua ordered his men to take them down from the trees. ¹  They threw them into the cave where they had hidden and piled large stones over the mouth of the cave. (They remain to this very day.) ² 

Now, assign me this hill country which the Lord promised me at that time! No doubt you heard at that time that the Anakites live there in large, fortified cities. ¹  But, assuming the Lord is with me, I will conquer ²  them, as the Lord promised.”

Joshua replied to them, “Since you have so many people, ¹  go up into the forest and clear out a place to live in the land of the Perizzites and Rephaites, for the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you.”

It then crossed from there to Luz, to the slope of Luz to the south (that is, Bethel), ¹  and descended to Ataroth Addar located on the hill that is south of lower Beth Horon.

He must remain ¹  in that city until his case is decided by the assembly ²  and the high priest dies. ³  Then the one who committed manslaughter may return home to the city from which he escaped.” ⁴