Joshua

Much later, after GOD had given Israel rest from all the enemies around them, and when Joshua was old and well advanced in years,

Joshua summoned all Israel, their elders and commanders, their magistrates and officials, and said to them: “I have grown old and am advanced in years.

You have seen all that the ETERNAL your God has done to all those nations on your account, for it was the ETERNAL your God who fought for you.

See, I have allotted to you, by your tribes, [the territory of] these nations that still remain, and that of all the nations that I have destroyed, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

It is the ETERNAL your God who will thrust them out on your account and drive them out to make way for you, and you shall possess their land as the ETERNAL your God promised you.

“But be most resolute to observe faithfully all that is written in the Book of the Teaching of Moses, without ever deviating from it to the right or to the left,

and without intermingling with these nations that are left among you. Do not utter the names of their gods or swear by them; do not serve them or bow down to them.

But hold fast to the ETERNAL your God as you have done to this day.

“GOD has driven out great, powerful nations on your account, and no one has withstood you to this day.

A single one of you would put a thousand to flight, for the ETERNAL your God has been fighting for you, just as you were promised.

For your own sakes, therefore, be most mindful to love the ETERNAL your God.

For should you turn away and attach yourselves to the remnant of those nations—to those that are left among you—and intermarry with them, you joining them and they joining you,

know for certain that the ETERNAL your God will not continue to drive these nations out before you; they shall become a snare and a trap for you, a scourge to your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the ETERNAL your God has given you.

“I am now going the way of all the earth. Acknowledge with all your heart and soul that not one of the good things that the ETERNAL your God promised you has failed to happen; they have all come true for you, not a single one has failed.

But just as every good thing that the ETERNAL your God promised you has been fulfilled for you, so GOD can bring upon you every evil thing until you have been wiped off this good land that the ETERNAL your God has given you.

If you break the covenant that the ETERNAL your God enjoined upon you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then GOD’s anger will burn against you, and you shall quickly perish from the good land that you have been given.”