When the morrow dawned, Josue and the men of Israel moved camp, from Setim to the banks of the Jordan. Here they waited three days,

and then the heralds went out through the midst of the camp,

and made this proclamation: When you see the priests of Levi’s race on the march, carrying the ark of the Lord your God, you yourselves must follow behind them,

keeping it in distant view; so you shall know what path to take, a path you have not trodden before. But leave a space of two thousand cubits between the ark and yourselves; not for you the neighbourhood of the ark.

And Josue bade the people keep themselves free from defilement; the Lord was preparing to do a miracle next day in their midst.

Then he bade the priests take up the ark that bore record of the covenant, and march on; and they, at his bidding, took it up and began leading the way.

This day, the Lord said to Josue, I mean to win thee renown for all Israel to see; they shall learn that he who went with Moses goes now with thee.

Bid the priests who are bearing the ark wade out a little into the waters of Jordan, and halt there.

So Josue said to the Israelites, Come close, and listen to the message the Lord your God sends you.

And then, Here is proof that the living presence of the Lord God is among you; proof that he means to dispossess Chanaanite and Hethite, Hevite and Pherezite, Gergesite and Jebusite and Amorrhite at your coming.

Here is the ark ready to cross the Jordan at your head, that ark which bears record of your covenant with the Lord of all the earth;

you must choose out twelve men, one from each tribe of Israel, to witness it.✻

And when the priests set foot in the waters of Jordan, bearing his ark who is Lord of the whole earth, the stream below them will pass on and be lost to sight; the stream above will check its flow, heaped up in a single mass of water.

So the people left their encampment to go across Jordan, the priests who carried the ark marching at their head.

And when these began wading out, as soon as their feet were under water (it was harvest time, and the Jordan had risen to the full height of its banks),

the stream above them halted in its course. Far up, all the way from the city of Adom to the place called Sarthan, these upper waters looked like a swelling mound; and the waters below flowed on into the Desert Sea, that is now called the Dead Sea, till they disappeared altogether.

And so the people marched on to the assault of Jericho; the priests, carrying the Lord’s ark, stood there with loins girt in the middle of the Jordan on dry ground, while the whole people went past over the dry bed of the stream.