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Much later the LORD gave Israel security from their enemies around them. By that time Joshua was very old,
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so he called all Israel, the elders, leaders, judges, and officers of the people, and said, "I am very old now.
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You have seen everything that the LORD your God has done to all these nations because of you. The LORD your God has been fighting for you.
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I have assigned as the possession of your tribes the land of the nations that are still left, as well as of all the nations that I have already conquered, from the Jordan River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.
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The LORD your God will make them retreat from you, and he will drive them away as you advance. You shall have their land, as the LORD your God has promised you.
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So be careful to obey and do everything that is written in the book of the Law of Moses. Do not neglect any part of it,
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and then you will not associate with these peoples left among you or speak the names of their gods or use those names in taking vows or worship those gods or bow down to them.
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Instead, be faithful to the LORD, as you have been till now.
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The LORD has driven great and powerful nations out as you advanced, and no one has ever been able to stand against you.
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Any one of you can make a thousand men run away, because the LORD your God is fighting for you, just as he promised.
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Be careful, then, to love the LORD your God.
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If you are disloyal and join with the nations that are still left among you and intermarry with them,
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you may be sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive these nations out as you advance. Rather, they will be as dangerous for you as a trap or a pit and as painful as a whip on your back or thorns in your eyes. And this will last until none of you are left in this good land which the LORD your God has given you.
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"Now my time has come to die. Every one of you knows in his heart and soul that the LORD your God has given you all the good things that he promised. Every promise he made has been kept; not one has failed.
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But just as he kept every promise that he made to you, so he will carry out every threat.
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If you do not keep the covenant which the LORD your God commanded you to keep and if you serve and worship other gods, then in his anger he will punish you, and soon none of you will be left in this good land that he has given you."
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Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem. He called the elders, the leaders, the judges, and the officers of Israel, and they came into the presence of God.
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Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, has to say: 'Long ago your ancestors lived on the other side of the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. One of those ancestors was Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor.
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Then I took Abraham, your ancestor, from the land across the Euphrates and led him through the whole land of Canaan. I gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac,
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and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Edom as his possession, but your ancestor Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.
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Later I sent Moses and Aaron, and I brought great trouble on Egypt. But I led you out;
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I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and cavalry. But when your ancestors got to the Red Sea
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they cried out to me for help, and I put darkness between them and the Egyptians. I made the sea come rolling over the Egyptians and drown them. You know what I did to Egypt. " 'You lived in the desert a long time.
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Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the east side of the Jordan. They fought you, but I gave you victory over them. You took their land, and I destroyed them as you advanced.
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Then the king of Moab, Balak son of Zippor, fought against you. He sent word to Balaam son of Beor and asked him to put a curse on you.
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But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you, and in this way I rescued you from Balak.
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You crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The men of Jericho fought you, as did the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. But I gave you victory over them all.
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As you advanced, I threw them into panic in order to drive out the two Amorite kings. Your swords and bows had nothing to do with it.
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I gave you a land that you had never worked and cities that you had not built. Now you are living there and eating grapes from vines that you did not plant, and olives from trees that you did not plant.'
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"Now then," Joshua continued, "honor the LORD and serve him sincerely and faithfully. Get rid of the gods which your ancestors used to worship in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, and serve only the LORD.
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If you are not willing to serve him, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your ancestors worshiped in Mesopotamia or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are now living. As for my family and me, we will serve the LORD."
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The people replied, "We would never leave the LORD to serve other gods!
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The LORD our God brought our fathers and us out of slavery in Egypt, and we saw the miracles that he performed. He kept us safe wherever we went among all the nations through which we passed.
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As we advanced into this land, the LORD drove out all the Amorites who lived here. So we also will serve the LORD; he is our God."
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Joshua said to the people, "But you may not be able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God and will not forgive your sins. He will tolerate no rivals,
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and if you leave him to serve foreign gods, he will turn against you and punish you. He will destroy you, even though he was good to you before."
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The people said to Joshua, "No! We will serve the LORD."
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Joshua told them, "You are your own witnesses to the fact that you have chosen to serve the LORD." "Yes," they said, "we are witnesses."
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"Then get rid of those foreign gods that you have," he demanded, "and pledge your loyalty to the LORD, the God of Israel."
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The people then said to Joshua, "We will serve the LORD our God. We will obey his commands."
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So Joshua made a covenant for the people that day, and there at Shechem he gave them laws and rules to follow.
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Joshua wrote these commands in the book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up under the oak tree in the LORD's sanctuary.
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He said to all the people, "This stone will be our witness. It has heard all the words that the LORD has spoken to us. So it will be a witness against you, to keep you from rebelling against your God."
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Then Joshua sent the people away, and everyone returned to their own part of the land.
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After that, the LORD's servant Joshua son of Nun died at the age of a hundred and ten.
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They buried him on his own land at Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim north of Mount Gaash.
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As long as Joshua lived, the people of Israel served the LORD, and after his death they continued to do so as long as those leaders were alive who had seen for themselves everything that the LORD had done for Israel.
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The body of Joseph, which the people of Israel had brought from Egypt, was buried at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of silver. This land was inherited by Joseph's descendants.
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Eleazar son of Aaron died and was buried at Gibeah, the town in the hill country of Ephraim which had been given to his son Phinehas.
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With our own ears we have heard it, O God--- our ancestors have told us about it, about the great things you did in their time, in the days of long ago:
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how you yourself drove out the heathen and established your people in their land; how you punished the other nations and caused your own to prosper.
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Your people did not conquer the land with their swords; they did not win it by their own power; it was by your power and your strength, by the assurance of your presence, which showed that you loved them.
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You are my king and my God; you give victory to your people,
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and by your power we defeat our enemies.
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I do not trust in my bow or in my sword to save me;
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but you have saved us from our enemies and defeated those who hate us.
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We will always praise you and give thanks to you forever.
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But now you have rejected us and let us be defeated; you no longer march out with our armies.
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You made us run from our enemies, and they took for themselves what was ours.
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You allowed us to be slaughtered like sheep; you scattered us in foreign countries.
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You sold your own people for a small price as though they had little value.
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Our neighbors see what you did to us, and they mock us and laugh at us.
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You have made us a joke among the nations; they shake their heads at us in scorn.
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I am always in disgrace; I am covered with shame
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from hearing the sneers and insults of my enemies and those who hate me.
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All this has happened to us, even though we have not forgotten you or broken the covenant you made with us.
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We have not been disloyal to you; we have not disobeyed your commands.
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Yet you left us helpless among wild animals; you abandoned us in deepest darkness.
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If we had stopped worshiping our God and prayed to a foreign god,
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you would surely have discovered it, because you know our secret thoughts.
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But it is on your account that we are being killed all the time, that we are treated like sheep to be slaughtered.
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Wake up, Lord! Why are you asleep? Rouse yourself ! Don't reject us forever!
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Why are you hiding from us? Don't forget our suffering and trouble!
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We fall crushed to the ground; we lie defeated in the dust.
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Come to our aid! Because of your constant love save us!
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Imitate me, then, just as I imitate Christ.
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I praise you because you always remember me and follow the teachings that I have handed on to you.
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But I want you to understand that Christ is supreme over every man, the husband is supreme over his wife, and God is supreme over Christ.
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So a man who prays or proclaims God's message in public worship with his head covered disgraces Christ.
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And any woman who prays or proclaims God's message in public worship with nothing on her head disgraces her husband; there is no difference between her and a woman whose head has been shaved.
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If the woman does not cover her head, she might as well cut her hair. And since it is a shameful thing for a woman to shave her head or cut her hair, she should cover her head.
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A man has no need to cover his head, because he reflects the image and glory of God. But woman reflects the glory of man;
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for man was not created from woman, but woman from man.
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Nor was man created for woman's sake, but woman was created for man's sake.
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On account of the angels, then, a woman should have a covering over her head to show that she is under her husband's authority.
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In our life in the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.
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For as woman was made from man, in the same way man is born of woman; and it is God who brings everything into existence.
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Judge for yourselves whether it is proper for a woman to pray to God in public worship with nothing on her head.
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Why, nature itself teaches you that long hair on a man is a disgrace,
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but on a woman it is a thing of beauty. Her long hair has been given her to serve as a covering.
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But if anyone wants to argue about it, all I have to say is that neither we nor the churches of God have any other custom in worship.
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In the following instructions, however, I do not praise you, because your meetings for worship actually do more harm than good.
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In the first place, I have been told that there are opposing groups in your meetings; and this I believe is partly true.
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(No doubt there must be divisions among you so that the ones who are in the right may be clearly seen.)
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When you meet together as a group, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat.
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For as you eat, you each go ahead with your own meal, so that some are hungry while others get drunk.
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Don't you have your own homes in which to eat and drink? Or would you rather despise the church of God and put to shame the people who are in need? What do you expect me to say to you about this? Shall I praise you? Of course I don't!
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For I received from the Lord the teaching that I passed on to you: that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took a piece of bread,
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gave thanks to God, broke it, and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in memory of me."
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In the same way, after the supper he took the cup and said, "This cup is God's new covenant, sealed with my blood. Whenever you drink it, do so in memory of me."
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This means that every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
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It follows that if one of you eats the Lord's bread or drinks from his cup in a way that dishonors him, you are guilty of sin against the Lord's body and blood.
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So then, you should each examine yourself first, and then eat the bread and drink from the cup.
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For if you do not recognize the meaning of the Lord's body when you eat the bread and drink from the cup, you bring judgment on yourself as you eat and drink.
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That is why many of you are sick and weak, and several have died.
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If we would examine ourselves first, we would not come under God's judgment.
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But we are judged and punished by the Lord, so that we shall not be condemned together with the world.
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So then, my friends, when you gather together to eat the Lord's Supper, wait for one another.
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And if any of you are hungry, you should eat at home, so that you will not come under God's judgment as you meet together. As for the other matters, I will settle them when I come.
