Joshua’s Farewell Address

23 Now it came to pass, a long time after the Lord ^(A)had given rest to Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua ^(B)was old, advanced in age. ² And Joshua ^(C)called for all Israel, for their elders, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers, and said to them:

“I am old, advanced in age. ³ You have seen all that the ^(D)Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you, for the ^(E)Lord your God is He who has fought for you. ⁴ See, ^(F)I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, as far as the Great Sea westward. ⁵ And the Lord your God ^(G)will expel them from before you and drive them out of your sight. So you shall possess their land, ^(H)as the Lord your God promised you. ^6 (I)Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, ^(J)lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left, ⁷ and lest you ^(K)go^[a] among these nations, these who remain among you. You shall not ^(L)make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to ^(M)swear by them; you shall not ^(N)serve them nor bow down to them, ⁸ but you shall ^(O)hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day. ^9 (P)For the Lord has ^[b]driven out from before you great and strong nations; but as for you, no one has been able to stand against you to this day. ^10 (Q)One man of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord your God is He who fights for you, ^(R)as He promised you. ^11 (S)Therefore take careful heed to yourselves, that you love the Lord your God. ¹² Or else, if indeed you do ^(T)go back, and cling to the remnant of these nations—these that remain among you—and ^(U)make marriages with them, and go in to them and they to you, ¹³ know for certain that ^(V)the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. ^(W)But they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴ “Behold, this day ^(X)I^[c] am going the way of all the earth. And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that ^(Y)not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed. ^15 (Z)Therefore it shall come to pass, that as all the good things have come upon you which the Lord your God promised you, so the Lord will bring upon you ^(AA)all harmful things, until He has destroyed you from this good land which the Lord your God has given you. ^16 [d]When you have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed down to them, then the ^(AB)anger of the Lord will burn against you, and you shall perish quickly from the good land which He has given you.”

The Covenant at Shechem^(AC)

24 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to ^(AD)Shechem and ^(AE)called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers; and they ^(AF)presented themselves before God. ² And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ^(AG)‘Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of ^[e]the River in old times; and ^(AH)they served other gods. ^3 (AI)Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of ^[f]the River, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his ^[g]descendants and ^(AJ)gave him Isaac. ⁴ To Isaac I gave ^(AK)Jacob and Esau. To ^(AL)Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, ^(AM)but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. ^5 (AN)Also I sent Moses and Aaron, and ^(AO)I plagued Egypt, according to what I did among them. Afterward I brought you out.

⁶ ‘Then I ^(AP)brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea; and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. ⁷ So they cried out to the Lord; and He put ^(AQ)darkness between you and the Egyptians, brought the sea upon them, and covered them. And ^(AR)your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you dwelt in the wilderness ^(AS)a long time. ⁸ And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, ^(AT)and they fought with you. But I gave them into your hand, that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them from before you. ⁹ Then ^(AU)Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel, and ^(AV)sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. ^10 (AW)But I would not listen to Balaam; ^(AX)therefore he continued to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hand. ¹¹ Then ^(AY)you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho. And ^(AZ)the men of Jericho fought against you—also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. But I delivered them into your hand. ^12 (BA)I sent the hornet before you which drove them out from before you, also the two kings of the Amorites, but ^(BB)not with your sword or with your bow. ¹³ I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and ^(BC)cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’

^14 (BD)“Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in ^(BE)sincerity and in truth, and ^(BF)put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of ^[h]the River and ^(BG)in Egypt. Serve the Lord! ¹⁵ And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, ^(BH)choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether ^(BI)the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of ^[i]the River, or ^(BJ)the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. ^(BK)But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶ So the people answered and said: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; ¹⁷ for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed. ¹⁸ And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. ^(BL)We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.”

¹⁹ But Joshua said to the people, ^(BM)“You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a ^(BN)holy God. He is ^(BO)a jealous God; ^(BP)He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. ^20 (BQ)If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, ^(BR)then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.”

²¹ And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord!”

²² So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that ^(BS)you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.”

And they said, “We are witnesses!”

²³ “Now therefore,” he said, ^(BT)“put away the foreign gods which are among you, and ^(BU)incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.”

²⁴ And the people ^(BV)said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!”

²⁵ So Joshua ^(BW)made^[j] a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance ^(BX)in Shechem.

²⁶ Then Joshua ^(BY)wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took ^(BZ)a large stone, and ^(CA)set it up there ^(CB)under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. ²⁷ And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be ^(CC)a witness to us, for ^(CD)it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.” ²⁸ So ^(CE)Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.

Death of Joshua and Eleazar

^29 (CF)Now it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being one hundred and ten years old. ³⁰ And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at ^(CG)Timnath Serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash.

^31 (CH)Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had ^(CI)known all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.

^32 (CJ)The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem, in the plot of ground ^(CK)which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred ^[k]pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph.

³³ And ^(CL)Eleazar the son of Aaron died. They buried him in a hill belonging to ^(CM)Phinehas his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim.

Redemption Remembered in Present Dishonor

To the Chief Musician. A ^(A)Contemplation^[a] of the sons of Korah.

Worship and the Lord’s Supper

11 Imitate^(A) me, just as I also imitate Christ.

Head Coverings

² Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you. ³ But I want you to know that ^(B)the head of every man is Christ, ^(C)the head of woman is man, and ^(D)the head of Christ is God. ⁴ Every man praying or ^(E)prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. ⁵ But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were ^(F)shaved. ⁶ For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is ^(G)shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered. ⁷ For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since ^(H)he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. ⁸ For man is not from woman, but woman ^(I)from man. ⁹ Nor was man created for the woman, but woman ^(J)for the man. ¹⁰ For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. ¹¹ Nevertheless, ^(K)neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord. ¹² For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God.

¹³ Judge among yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? ¹⁴ Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? ¹⁵ But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given ^[a]to her for a covering. ¹⁶ But ^(L)if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, ^(M)nor do the churches of God.

Conduct at the Lord’s Supper

¹⁷ Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. ¹⁸ For first of all, when you come together as a church, ^(N)I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. ¹⁹ For ^(O)there must also be factions among you, ^(P)that those who are approved may be ^[b]recognized among you. ²⁰ Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. ²¹ For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and ^(Q)another is drunk. ²² What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise ^(R)the church of God and ^(S)shame ^[c]those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you.

Institution of the Lord’s Supper^(T)

²³ For ^(U)I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: ^(V)that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; ²⁴ and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ^[d]“Take, eat; this is My body which is ^[e]broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” ²⁵ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death ^(W)till He comes.

Examine Yourself

²⁷ Therefore whoever eats ^(X)this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and ^[f]blood of the Lord. ²⁸ But ^(Y)let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. ²⁹ For he who eats and drinks ^[g]in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the ^[h]Lord’s body. ³⁰ For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many ^[i]sleep. ³¹ For ^(Z)if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. ³² But when we are judged, ^(AA)we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.

³³ Therefore, my brethren, when you ^(AB)come together to eat, wait for one another. ³⁴ But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.