Joshua 23
1NOW after many years, when the Lord had given Israel rest from all their enemies round about,
2Joshua being far advanced in years, convoked all the sons of Israel, their elders, and their chiefs, and their judges, and their under officers, and said to them, I am grown old, and am far advanced in years.
3Now you have seen all that the Lord our God hath done to these nations for your sake; for it is the Lord your God Who hath fought for you.
4You see that I have thrown in among the lots for your tribes, the nations which are left by you, with all the nations which I have exterminated between the Jordan and the great sea, which is to be your western boundary.
5The Lord our God will Himself root them out from before you until they be destroyed. He will send the wild beasts against them, until they utterly destroy them and their kings from before you, so that you may possess their land, as the Lord our God hath spoken to you.
6Be strong therefore to keep with all diligence, and to do all that are written in the book of the law of Moses, that you may not turn aside to the right, nor to the left.
7That you may have no fellowship with those nations which are left, the names of their gods must not be mentioned among you; nor shall you perform religious service to them, nor worship them;
8but you shall cleave to the Lord our God, as you have done to this day.
9Then will the Lord root them out from before you, though they are great and powerful nations. None indeed have been able to stand before you even to this day.
10One of you hath chased a thousand, because the Lord our God Himself fought for you, as He promised you.
11Therefore take good heed to love the Lord our God.
12For if you turn away, and join yourselves with those nations which are left with you, and intermarry with them, and be mixed with them, and they with you,
13be assured that the Lord will no more drive out those nations from before you; but they shall be to you snares and stumbling blocks, and nails in your heels, and darts in your eyes, until you be destroyed from this good land, which the Lord your God hath given you.
14As for me, I am going speedily the way of all who are on the earth. Now you must know in your heart, and in your soul, that not one word hath failed of all that the Lord our God hath said. With respect to all that have come to us, not one of them have failed.
15Now as all the good things, which the Lord hath spoken respecting you, have come to you, so the Lord God will bring upon you all the evil things, until He destroy you from this good land, which the Lord hath given you,
16when you transgress the covenant of the Lord our God, which He hath commanded us, and go and serve other gods and worship them.