Joshua 3

1 And the Lord said to Joshua: This day will I begin to exalt thee before Israel: that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I am with thee also. 2 And do thou command the priests, that carry the ark of the covenant, and say to them: When you shall have entered into part of the water of the Jordan, stand in it. 3 And Joshua said to the children of Israel: Come hither, and hear the word of the Lord your God. 4 And again he said: By this you shall know, that the Lord, the living God, is in the midst of you, and that he shall destroy, before your sight, the Chanaanite and the Hethite, the Hevite and the Pherezite, the Gergesite also, and the Jebusite, and the Amorrhite. 5 Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth shall go before you into the Jordan. 6 Prepare ye twelve men of the tribes of Israel, one of every tribe. 7 And when the priests, that carry the ark of the Lord the God of the whole earth, shall set the soles of their feet in the waters of the Jordan, the waters that are beneath shall run down and go off: and those that come from above, shall stand together upon a heap. 8 So the people went out of their tents, to pass over the Jordan: and the priests that carried the ark of the covenant, went on before them. 9 And as soon as they came into the Jordan, and their feet were dipped in part of the water, (now the Jordan, it being harvest time, had filled the banks of its channel,) 10 The waters that came down from above stood in one place, and swelling up like a mountain, were seen afar off, from the city that is called Adom, to the place of Sarthan: but those that were beneath, ran down into the sea of the wilderness, (which now is called the Dead Sea) until they wholly failed. 11 And the people marched over against Jericho: and the priests that carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, stood girded upon the dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all the people passed over, through the channel that was dried up. 13 And when they were passed over, the Lord said to Joshua: 14 Choose twelve men, one of every tribe: 15 And command them to take out of the midst of the Jordan, where the feet of the priests stood, twelve very hard stones, which you shall set in the place of the camp, where you shall pitch your tents this night. 16 And Joshua called twelve men, whom he had chosen out of the children of Israel, one out of every tribe, 17 And he said to them: Go before the ark of the Lord your God to the midst of the Jordan, and carry from thence every man a stone on your shoulders, according to the number of the children of Israel,