Scriptures

New Living Translation (NLT)

Joshua 4
²¹ Then Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future your children will ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’
²² Then you can tell them, ‘This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’
²³ For the LORD your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over.
²⁴ He did this so all the nations of the earth might know that the LORD’s hand is powerful, and so you might fear the LORD your God forever.”
Joshua 5
¹ When all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings who lived along the Mediterranean coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross, they lost heart and were paralyzed with fear because of them.
² At that time the LORD told Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise this second generation of Israelites.”
³ So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the entire male population of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.
⁴ Joshua had to circumcise them because all the men who were old enough to fight in battle when they left Egypt had died in the wilderness.
⁵ Those who left Egypt had all been circumcised, but none of those born after the Exodus, during the years in the wilderness, had been circumcised.
⁶ The Israelites had traveled in the wilderness for forty years until all the men who were old enough to fight in battle when they left Egypt had died. For they had disobeyed the LORD, and the LORD vowed he would not let them enter the land he had sworn to give us—a land flowing with milk and honey.
⁷ So Joshua circumcised their sons—those who had grown up to take their fathers’ places—for they had not been circumcised on the way to the Promised Land.