< Joshua 3 >
1 And Joshua rises early in the morning, and they journey from Shittim, and come to the Jordan, he and all the sons of Israel, and they lodge there before they pass over.
2 And it comes to pass, at the end of three days, that the authorities pass over into the midst of the camp,
3 and command the people, saying, “When you see the Ark of the Covenant of your God YHWH, and the priests, the Levites, carrying it, then you journey from your place, and have gone after it;
4 only, a distance is between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure; you do not come near to it, so that you know the way in which you go, for you have not passed over in the way before.”
5 And Joshua says to the people, “Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow YHWH does wonders in your midst.”
6 And Joshua speaks to the priests, saying, “Take up the Ark of the Covenant, and pass over before the people”; and they take up the Ark of the Covenant, and go before the people.
7 And YHWH says to Joshua, “This day I begin to make you great in the eyes of all Israel, so that they know that as I was with Moses I am with you;
8 and you, command the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant, saying, When you come to the extremity of the waters of the Jordan, stand in the Jordan.”
9 And Joshua says to the sons of Israel, “Come near here, and hear the words of your God YHWH”;
10 and Joshua says, “By this you know that the living God [is] in your midst, and He certainly dispossesses from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite:
11 behold, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing over before you into the Jordan;
12 and now, take for yourselves twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, one man—one man for a tribe;
13 and it has been, at the resting of the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the Ark of YHWH, Lord of all the earth, in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan are cut off—the waters which are coming down from above—and they stand—one heap.”
14 And it comes to pass, in the journeying of the people from their tents to pass over the Jordan, and of the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant before the people,
15 and at those carrying the Ark coming to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the Ark have been dipped in the extremity of the waters (and the Jordan is full over all its banks all the days of harvest)—
16 that the waters stand; those coming down from above have risen—one heap, very far above Adam, the city which [is] at the side of Zaretan; and those going down by the Sea of the Plain (the Salt Sea), have been completely cut off; and the people have passed through opposite Jericho;
17 and the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant of YHWH stand on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan—established, and all Israel are passing over on dry ground until all the nation has completed to pass over the Jordan.
