The Tribes Renew the Covenant

24 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.^{(A) 2} And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods.^{(B) 3} Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac,^{(C) 4} and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.^{(D) 5} Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in its midst, and afterward I brought you out.^{(E) 6} When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your ancestors with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea.^{[a](F) 7} When they cried out to the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians and made the sea come upon them and cover them, and your eyes saw what I did to Egypt. Afterward you lived in the wilderness a long time.

¹³ I gave you a land on which you had not labored and towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that you did not plant.^(A)

¹⁴ “Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord.^{(B) 15} Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”^(C)

²⁴ The people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and him we will obey.”^{(A) 25} So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and made statutes and ordinances for them at Shechem.^{(B) 26} Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak in the sanctuary of the Lord.