Joshua 5

1When all the kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan to the west and all the kings of the Canaanites by the sea heard how Yahweh had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted, and there was no courage left in them because of the Israelites.

2At that time Yahweh said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again, a second time.”

3So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at the Hill of Foreskins.

4This is the reason Joshua circumcised them: all the people who came out of Egypt, the males, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they came out of Egypt.

5All the people who came out had been circumcised, but none of the people born in the wilderness on the way after they came out of Egypt had been circumcised.

6For the Israelites walked forty years in the wilderness until the whole nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, had perished, because they did not obey the voice of Yahweh. Yahweh had sworn to them that he would not let them see the land that Yahweh had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

7It was their sons, whom he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised. They were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way.

8When the whole nation had finished being circumcised, they stayed where they were in the camp until they had healed.

9Then Yahweh said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the disgrace of Egypt from you.” So that place has been called Gilgal to this day.

10While the Israelites were camped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the plains of Jericho.

11On the day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain.

12The manna stopped on the next day, when they ate from the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna. That year they ate from the crops of the land of Canaan.

13When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with his sword drawn in his hand. Joshua went up to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

14He said, “No. I am the commander of the army of Yahweh, and now I have come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground and bowed down, and he said to him, “What does my lord have to say to his servant?”

15The commander of the army of Yahweh said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.