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First Reading: Joshua Chapter 7 and 8Joshua 7
7:1 Defeat at Ai
But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things,
for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe
of Judah, took of the accursed things; so the anger of the LORD burned against
the children of Israel.
2 Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Aven, on the
east side of Bethel, and spoke to them, saying, "Go up and spy out the
country." So the men went up and spied out Ai. 3 And they returned to Joshua
and said to him, "Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or
three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people there, for
the people of Ai are few." 4 So about three thousand men went up there
from the people, but they fled before the men of Ai. 5 And the men of Ai struck
down about thirty-six men, for they chased them from before the gate as far
as Shebarim, and struck them down on the descent; therefore the hearts of the
people melted and became like water.
6 Then Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before the
ark of the LORD until evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust
on their heads. 7 And Joshua said, "Alas, Lord GOD, why have You brought
this people over the Jordan at all to deliver us into the hand of the
Amorites, to destroy us? Oh, that we had been content, and dwelt on the other
side of the Jordan! 8 O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turns its back before
its enemies? 9 For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear
it, and surround us, and cut off our name from the earth. Then what will You
do for Your great name?"
10 The Sin of Achan
So the LORD said to Joshua: "Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face?
11 Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded
them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen
and deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff. 12 Therefore
the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their
backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction.
Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among
you. 13 Get up, sanctify the people, and say,'Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow,
because thus says the LORD God of Israel: "There is an accursed thing in
your midst, O Israel; you cannot stand before your enemies until you take away
the accursed thing from among you." 14 In the morning therefore you shall
be brought according to your tribes. And it shall be that the tribe which the
LORD takes shall come according to families; and the family which the LORD takes
shall come by households; and the household which the LORD takes shall come
man by man. 15 Then it shall be that he who is taken with the accursed thing
shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed
the covenant of the LORD, and because he has done a disgraceful thing in Israel.'"
16 So Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel by their tribes, and
the tribe of Judah was taken. 17 He brought the clan of Judah, and he took the
family of the Zarhites; and he brought the family of the Zarhites man by man,
and Zabdi was taken. 18 Then he brought his household man by man, and Achan
the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah,
was taken.
19 Now Joshua said to Achan, "My son, I beg you, give glory to the LORD
God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done;
do not hide it from me."
20 And Achan answered Joshua and said, "Indeed I have sinned against the
LORD God of Israel, and this is what I have done: 21 When I saw among the spoils
a beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of
gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. And there they are,
hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it."
22 So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and there it was, hidden
in his tent, with the silver under it. 23 And they took them from the midst
of the tent, brought them to Joshua and to all the children of Israel, and laid
them out before the LORD. 24 Then Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan
the son of Zerah, the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his
daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that he had,
and they brought them to the Valley of Achor. 25 And Joshua said,"Why have
you troubled us? The LORD will trouble you this day." So all Israel stoned
him with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with
stones.
26 Then they raised over him a great heap of stones, still there to this day.
So the LORD turned from the fierceness of His anger. Therefore the name of that
place has been called the Valley of Achor to this day.
Joshua 8
8:1 The Fall of Ai
Now the LORD said to Joshua:"Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed; take all
the people of war with you, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your
hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. 2 And you shall do
to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its
cattle you shall take as booty for yourselves. Lay an ambush for the city behind
it."
3 So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up against Ai; and Joshua
chose thirty thousand mighty men of valor and sent them away by night. 4 And
he commanded them, saying: "Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the
city, behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.
5 Then I and all the people who are with me will approach the city; and it will
come about, when they come out against us as at the first, that we shall flee
before them. 6 For they will come out after us till we have drawn them from
the city, for they will say, 'They are fleeing before us as at the first.' Therefore
we will flee before them. 7 Then you shall rise from the ambush and seize the
city, for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand. 8 And it will be,
when you have taken the city, that you shall set the city on fire. According
to the commandment of the LORD you shall do. See, I have commanded you."
9 Joshua therefore sent them out; and they went to lie in ambush, and stayed
between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; but Joshua lodged that night
among the people. 10 Then Joshua rose up early in the morning and mustered the
people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. 11
And all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near; and they
came before the city and camped on the north side of Ai. Now a valley lay between
them and Ai. 12 So he took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between
Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city. 13 And when they had set the people,
all the army that was on the north of the city, and its rear guard on the west
of the city, Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley.
14 Now it happened, when the king of Ai saw it, that the men of the city hurried
and rose early and went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people,
at an appointed place before the plain. But he did not know that there was an
ambush against him behind the city. 15 And Joshua and all Israel made as if
they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness. 16 So all
the people who were in Ai were called together to pursue them. And they pursued
Joshua and were drawn away from the city. 17 There was not a man left in Ai
or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. So they left the city open and pursued
Israel.
18 Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Stretch out the spear that is in your
hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand." And Joshua stretched
out the spear that was in his hand toward the city. 19 So those in ambush arose
quickly out of their place; they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand,
and they entered the city and took it, and hurried to set the city on fire.
20 And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke
of the city ascended to heaven. So they had no power to flee this way or that
way, and the people who had fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers.
21 Now when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and
that the smoke of the city ascended, they turned back and struck down the men
of Ai. 22 Then the others came out of the city against them; so they were caught
in the midst of Israel, some on this side and some on that side. And they struck
them down, so that they let none of them remain or escape. 23 But the king of
Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.
24 And it came to pass when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants
of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they pursued them, and when they
all had fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all the
Israelites returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. 25 So it
was that all who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand
all the people of Ai. 26 For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he
stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants
of Ai. 27 Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as booty
for themselves, according to the word of the LORD which He had commanded Joshua.
28 So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day.
29 And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until evening. And as soon as the
sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his corpse down from the
tree, cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raise over it a great
heap of stones that remains to this day.
30 Joshua Renews the Covenant
(cf. Deut 27:4,5)
Now Joshua built an altar to the LORD God of Israel in Mount Ebal, 31 as Moses
the servant of the LORD had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written
in the Book of the Law of Moses:"an altar of whole stones over which no
man has wielded an iron tool." And they offered on it burnt offerings to
the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings. 32 And there, in the presence of the
children of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which
he had written. 33 Then all Israel, with their elders and officers and judges,
stood on either side of the ark before the priests, the Levites, who bore the
ark of the covenant of the LORD, the stranger as well as he who was born among
them. Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front
of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded before, that they
should bless the people of Israel. 34 And afterward he read all the words of
the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to all that is written in
the Book of the Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded
which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women,
the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them.
1 Corinthians 2
2:1 Christ Crucified
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech
or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined not to
know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I was with
you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching
were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the
Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but
in the power of God.
6 Spiritual Wisdom
However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of
this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we
speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before
the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had
they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written:
"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."
10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches
all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of
a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the
things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit
of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things
that have been freely given to us by God.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which
the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the
natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But
he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no
one. 16 For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?"
But we have the mind of Christ.
SUPER HEROES OF THE BIBLE
RAHAB
Rahab was a Canaanite woman of Jericho. She lived in a house built into the wall of the city. She may have been a prostitute or an innkeeper. However, she was a courageous woman, who after hearing about what God had done for Israel, trusted in Him. She hid the Israelite spies in her house so that they would not be apprehended and asked to be saved when Jericho was defeated. When the Israelites fought against Jericho, she hung a scarlet cord in her window and she and her household were spared.
Rahab's faith is testified to in the New Testament: "By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient." Hebrews 11:31 (NIV)
Rahab is also listed as one of the forebearers of Jesus in Matthew 1:5.
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