1Once the whole nation had crossed, 2Yahweh said to Joshua: “Choose twelve men, one from each tribe, 3and give them the following order: Take twelve stones from the riverbed of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests stood still. Bring them with you and put them where you will encamp tonight.”
4Joshua then called the twelve men he had chosen from the twelve tribes of Israel 5and ordered them: “Walk to the Ark, up to the middle of the Jordan and take from there a stone for each tribe and carry it upon your shoulder. 6They will remain with you as a sign of what happened, so that when your children ask you in the future: What do these stones mean for you? 7you may answer: When the Ark of Yahweh crossed the Jordan, the water parted before it. So these stones shall serve as a memorial to the Israelites forever.”
8The Israelites carried out Joshua’s order and picked up twelve stones from the riverbed of the Jordan, one for each tribe, just as Yahweh had ordered Joshua. They brought these to the place where they encamped and placed them there.
9Joshua piled up twelve stones on the riverbed of the Jordan, at the spot where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant stood. They are still there to this day. 10The priests who carried the Ark stood in the middle of the Jordan until Joshua finished saying everything that Yahweh had ordered him. 11Then when all the people had finished crossing the river, the Ark also crossed, and the priests walked at the head of the people again.
12The men from the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh went ahead armed, as Moses had ordered them to do. 13They were about forty thousand, well-armed, and they marched before Yahweh, ready for battle, to the plains of Jericho.
14On that day, Yahweh exalted Joshua before all Israel, and henceforth they respected him all the days of his life as they had done with Moses.
15Yahweh said to Joshua: 16“Command the priests who carry the Ark of the Divine Words to come up from the Jordan.” 17Joshua, therefore, ordered them to come up from the river. 18And when these priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh came up from the middle of the Jordan, when their feet touched the banks, the waters of the Jordan returned as abundantly as on previous days and overflowed its banks.
19It was on the tenth day of the first month when the people came up out of the Jordan and encamped in Gilgal, on the eastern border of Jericho. 20There in Gilgal, Joshua set up the twelve stones taken from the riverbed of the Jordan.
21Then Joshua said to the Israelites: “When your children ask you in the future what these stones mean, 22then you shall tell them that the people of Israel crossed the Jordan without getting their feet wet, 23for Yahweh, our God, dried up the waters of the Jordan before us just as he did to the Red Sea which he also dried up before us to let us cross. 24He did this so that the people of this land may know the power of Yahweh, our God, and that you yourselves may fear him forever.”
