Joshua 4

1When the entire nation had finished its crossing of the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, 2“Choose twelve men from the people, one man from each tribe. 3Then command them, ‘Pick up twelve stones from here in the middle of the Jordan, from the very spot where the priests have been standing firm. Carry them over with you, and set them down at the place where you camp tonight.’”

4So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen from the Israelites, one from each tribe. 5Joshua said to them, “Go ahead of the ark of the LORD your God, out to the middle of the Jordan. Every one of you is to lift a stone onto his shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, 6so that this will be a sign among you. In time to come, when your children ask, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ 7then tell them, ‘In front of the ark of the covenant of the LORD the waters of the Jordan were cut off. As it passed into the Jordan, the Jordan’s waters were cut off.’ These stones will be a memorial for the Israelites forever.” 8The Israelites did as Joshua commanded. They lifted twelve stones out of the middle of the Jordan, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, as the LORD had told Joshua. They took them across to the camping place and laid them down there. 9In the middle of the Jordan, Joshua also set up twelve stones, at the spot where the priests carrying the ark of the covenant had stood. They are there to this day. 10The priests who carried the ark kept standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything was done that the LORD had commanded Joshua to tell the people, just as Moses had commanded Joshua. And the people crossed over in haste. 11When all the people had finished crossing, the ark of the LORD and the priests crossed over in front of the people. 12The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh went across armed for battle, ahead of the Israelites, as Moses had told them. 13About 40,000 men equipped for war crossed over before the LORD, ready for battle, to the plains of Jericho.

14That day the LORD raised Joshua up in the sight of all Israel, and they held him in awe all his life, just as they had held Moses in awe.

15The LORD said to Joshua, 16“Order the priests carrying the ark of the testimony to come up from the Jordan.” 17So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” 18As the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD stepped up from the middle of the Jordan, and the soles of their feet came out onto dry ground, the Jordan’s waters went back to their place and flowed over all its banks as they had before. 19On the tenth day of the first month the people came up out of the Jordan and camped at Gilgal, on Jericho’s eastern border. 20Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken from the Jordan. 21Then he said to the Israelites, “In time to come, when your children ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22then explain it to your children: ‘Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.’ 23For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan’s waters ahead of you until you had crossed, just as the LORD your God had done to the Red Sea, drying it up ahead of us until we had crossed, 24so that all the peoples of the earth may know how mighty the hand of the LORD is, and so that you may fear the LORD your God for all time.”