Chapter 3

¹Joshua rose up early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel; and they lodged there before they passed over. ²It happened after three days, that the officers went through the midst of the camp; ³and they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of Yahweh your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then you shall remove from your place, and go after it. ⁴Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: don’t come near to it, that you may know the way by which you must go; for you have not passed this way heretofore. ⁵Joshua said to the people, Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow Yahweh will do wonders among you. ⁶Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. They took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. ⁷Yahweh said to Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. ⁸You shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When you are come to the brink of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan. ⁹Joshua said to the children of Israel, Come here, and hear the words of Yahweh your God. ¹⁰Joshua said, Hereby you shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite. ¹¹Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into the Jordan. ¹²Now therefore take twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, for every tribe a man. ¹³It shall come to pass, when the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of Yahweh, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, even the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand in one heap. ¹⁴It happened, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over the Jordan, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant being before the people; ¹⁵and when those who bore the ark were come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the time of harvest), ¹⁶that the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were wholly cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. ¹⁷The priests who bore the ark of the covenant of Yahweh stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan; and all Israel passed over on dry ground, until all the nation were passed clean over the Jordan.