Joshua 6

1Now Jericho was shut up tight because of the Israelites. Nobody left the city and nobody entered it.

2Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Look, I have handed Jericho over to you, along with its king and its strong warriors. 3All your fighting men are to march around the city, going around it once. Do this for six days. 4Seven priests are to carry seven rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day you are to march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the horns. 5When they sound a long blast on the ram’s horn and you hear the sound of the horn, all the people are to give a great shout. Then the city wall will collapse where it stands, and the people will go up into the city, each of them straight ahead.” 6So Joshua son of Nun summoned the priests and said to them, “Lift up the ark of the covenant. Seven priests are to go ahead of the ark of the LORD, carrying seven rams’ horns.” 7And he told the people, “Go forward and march around the city, with the armed men going on ahead of the ark of the LORD.” 8As soon as Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven rams’ horns before the LORD went forward blowing the horns, with the ark of the covenant of the LORD coming after them. 9The armed men went on ahead of the priests who were sounding the horns, and the rear guard came behind the ark, with the horns sounding without a break. 10Joshua had given the people this order: “Do not shout. Do not let your voices be heard. Not a word is to leave your mouths until the day I tell you, ‘Shout!’ Then you will shout.” 11So he had the ark of the LORD taken around the city, circling it once. Then they came back to the camp and spent the night there.

12Joshua got up early the next morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD. 13The seven priests carrying the seven rams’ horns went on in front of the ark of the LORD, blowing the horns as they walked. The armed men went ahead of them, and the rear guard came behind the ark of the LORD, with the horns sounding without a break. 14On the second day they marched around the city once and went back to the camp. They did this for six days. 15On the seventh day they got up at daybreak and marched around the city in the same way, but this time seven times. That was the only day they went around the city seven times. 16The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the horns, Joshua said to the people, “Shout! The LORD has handed the city over to you. 17The city and everything in it are to be devoted to the LORD for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute is to be spared, she and everyone with her in her house, because she hid the messengers we sent. 18But as for you, keep away from the things devoted to destruction. Do not devote them and then take any of them for yourselves. If you do, you will make the camp of Israel something devoted to destruction, and you will bring trouble on it. 19All the silver and gold and everything made of bronze and iron is holy to the LORD. It must go into the LORD’s treasury.” 20So the people shouted, and the horns were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the horn, they raised a great shout, and the wall collapsed where it stood. The people went up into the city, each of them straight ahead, and they took the city. 21They devoted to destruction everything in the city: men and women, young and old, and cattle, sheep and donkeys too. They put them all to the sword. 22Joshua gave an order to the two men who had spied out the land: “Go to the prostitute’s house and bring out the woman and everyone who belongs to her, just as you promised her with an oath.” 23So the young men who had been spies went in and brought out Rahab, with her father and mother, her brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out all her relatives and settled them outside the camp of Israel. 24Then they burned the city with fire, and everything in it. But they put the silver and gold and the bronze and iron goods into the treasury of the LORD’s house. 25But Joshua spared the life of Rahab the prostitute, along with her father’s household and everyone who belonged to her, and she has lived among the people of Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers Joshua had sent to spy out Jericho.

26At that time Joshua put the people under this oath: “Cursed before the LORD be the man who sets out to rebuild this city, Jericho! At the price of his firstborn he will lay its foundation; at the price of his youngest he will set its gates in place.” 27So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame spread through the whole land.