“We’ll defend you with our lives.” Then, since her house was on top of the city wall, she let them down by a rope from a window.

“Escape to the mountains,” she told them. “Hide there for three days until the men who are searching for you have returned; then go on your way.”

But before they left, the men had said to her, “We cannot be responsible for what happens to you unless this rope is hanging from this window and unless all your relatives—your father, mother, brothers, and anyone else—are here inside the house.

If they go out into the street, we assume no responsibility whatsoever; but we swear that no one inside this house will be killed or injured.

However, if you betray us, then this oath will no longer bind us in any way.”

The spies went up into the mountains and stayed there three days, until the men who were chasing them had returned to the city after searching everywhere along the road without success.

Then the two spies came down from the mountains and crossed the river and reported to Joshua all that had happened to them.

“The Lord will certainly give us the entire land,” they said, “for all the people over there are scared to death of us.”

Early the next morning Joshua and all the people of Israel left Acacia and arrived that evening at the banks of the Jordan River, where they camped for a few days before crossing.

On the third day officers went through the camp giving these instructions: “When you see the priests carrying the Ark of God, follow them. You have never before been where we are going now, so they will guide you. However, stay about a half mile behind, with a clear space between you and the Ark; be sure that you don’t get any closer.”

Instruct the priests who are carrying the Ark to stop at the edge of the river.”

Then Joshua summoned all the people and told them, “Come and listen to what the Lord your God has said.

Today you are going to know for sure that the living God is among you and that he will, without fail, drive out the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites—all the people who now live in the land you will soon occupy.

Think of it! The Ark of God, who is Lord of the whole earth, will lead you across the river!

“Now select twelve men, one from each tribe, for a special task.

When the priests who are carrying the Ark touch the water with their feet, the river will stop flowing as though held back by a dam, and will pile up as though against an invisible wall!” Now it was the harvest season and the Jordan was overflowing all its banks; but as the people set out to cross the river and as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river’s edge,

suddenly, far up the river at the city of Adam, near Zarethan, the water began piling up as though against a dam! And the water below that point flowed on to the Dead Sea until the riverbed was empty. Then all the people crossed at a spot where the river was close to the city of Jericho,

and the priests who were carrying the Ark stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan and waited as all the people passed by.

“Tell the twelve men chosen for a special task, one from each tribe, each to take a stone from where the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan, and to carry them out and pile them up as a monument at the place where you camp tonight.”

and told them, “Go out into the middle of the Jordan where the Ark is. Each of you is to carry out a stone on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes.

We will use them to build a monument so that in the future, when your children ask, ‘What is this monument for?’

you can tell them, ‘It is to remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of God went across!’ The monument will be a permanent reminder to the people of Israel of this amazing miracle.”

So the men did as Joshua told them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River—one for each tribe, just as the Lord had commanded Joshua. They carried them to the place where they were camped for the night and constructed a monument there.

Joshua also built another monument of twelve stones in the middle of the river, at the place where the priests were standing; and it is there to this day.

The priests who were carrying the Ark stood in the middle of the river until all these instructions of the Lord, which had been given to Joshua by Moses, had been carried out. Meanwhile, the people had hurried across the riverbed,