"Only Life Changes"

Judges 8:28-35, Chapter 9, Chapter 10

As soon as Gideon was dead, the Israelis promptly forgot about the Lord. They turned away from God again, and worshipped the idol Baal.

Gideon’s son Abimelech was king of the city of Shechem, but his friends wanted him to be king over all of Israel instead of just one city. They gave him seventy pieces of silver taken from the temple of Baal, and he used the money to hire men to go with him and help him.

First he killed all of his brothers except the youngest, who ran away Abimelech did this because he was afraid the people might become tired of him and ask one of his brothers to be king instead. So he became the king of all the land of Israel.

After Abimelech had been king for three years, God sent him trouble. Instead of being his friends any lounger, the people of Shechem became his enemies. While he was away on a trip, they decided to kill him.

The governor of the city, who was still Abimelech’s friend, sent him this secret message: “Be careful. The people of Shechem have rebelled against you. Come in the night with your men, and hide out in the field until morning. As soon as the sun is up, march toward the city; and when the people come out to fight you, you can defeat them.”

So Abimelech did this. He brought his men to the city during the night and hid them in the fields near the city. In the morning the people saw him and came out to fight, but he chased them back into the city and killed many of them.

The next morning they came out again. This time Abimelech divided his men into three groups and hid them in the field. As soon as the men of Shechem had gone quite far from the city gate, one of Abimelech’s groups ran behind them and stood in front of the gate to prevent the men of Shechem from getting back into their city. Then the two other groups ran toward them from the field and killed them. Abimelech and his men fought against the city all day, until all the people were killed, their houses knocked apart, and the city completely destroyed.

Some of the men of Shechem escaped to the temple of their idol Baal and barred the heavy gates so that Abimelech couldn’t get to them. He led his troops up a mountain and cut off large branches from the trees., then returned to the temple. They piled the branches against the door and set them on fire, burning up the temple and all the people inside.

Then Abimelech went to the city of Thebez, fought against it, and captured it. The people who lived there fled into a strong tower, locked the door, and climbed to its top. Abimelech tried to burn the tower as he had the idol temple in Shechem, but a woman threw down a huge rock from the top of the tower. It hit him on the head, crushing his skull.

When he knew he was dying, he called one of his young men and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me so it won’t be said I was killed by a woman.”

The youth thrust his sword through Abimelech, and he died. In this way God punished Abimelech for killing his brothers and also punished the people of Shechem for helping him to do it.

After Abimelech was dead. Tola was the judge of Israel for twenty three years.

After him, Jair, who lived across the Jordan River in the land of Gilead, was judge for twenty two years. He had thirty sons, and each of them was the governor of a city in Gilead.

Then the people of Israel turned away from the Lord again and worshipped Baal and Ashtaroth, the same idols their fathers had worshipped. So this time when the Philistines attacked Israel, the Lord didn’t help His people. They became slaves again for eighteen years.

In their trouble they cried out to the Lord for help; but He reminded them of how often He had set them free from their enemies, only to see them turn their backs on Him again and worship heathen idols. Let them go to the idols they had chosen. He said, and ask them for help. But the people of Israel confessed their sins and asked God to punish them, but please to set them free from their enemies. They destroyed the idols they had worshipped, and worshipped the Lord again; and He pitied them in their sufferings.

Questions:

Who was Abimelech’sfather?

Why did God send trouble to Abimelech?

How did Abimelech die?

Thanks for reading. Have a awesome day full of blessings and joy.

Judges Chapters 6&7&8-VS- 1-27

Soon a great army of Midianites arrived and camped in the valley of Jezreel. Gideon blew a trumpet and called the men of Israel to go with him and fight them.

Gideon asked God to do a miracle to prove to him that it was really God who had promised to help him when he went to fight against the Midianites. This is the miracle Gideon asked God to do. Gideon said he would leave some wool out on the ground all night. In the morning, if the wool was wet with dew and the ground all around it was dry, this would be a miracle and he would know that the Lord was going to help him in his fight to free the people of Israel.

So Gideon left the wool on the ground all night. Early the next morning he went outside and found it full of water. He wrung the dew out of it with his hands and filled a bowl with the water, but the ground all around was dry! Why wasn’t the ground wet too? You see, it was a miracle.

Then Gideon asked the Lord for permission to try it again; but this time he asked God to make the ground wet with dew and to let the wool stay dry! God agreed, so Gideon left the wool out another night, and in the morning the wool was perfectly dry, but the ground all around was wet.

Gideon knew by these miracles that the Lord would certainly help him when he went out to fight against the Midianites. Gideon’s little army got up early in the morning and started towards the vast army of Midian. But the Lord told Gideon that his little army was to big!

“Send some of your men home,” God said, “Tell anyone who is afraid to eave.”

When Gideon told his men this, twenty-two thousand of them went home, while ten-thousand stayed.

“There are still to many!” the Lord said. “Bring them down to the river and I will choose the ones I want in the battle.”

{God told Gideon to send his soldiers home except for three hundred of them who drank from their hands. God would use these three-hundred to defeat a vast enemy army.}

So Gideon brought them to the river. All the men were thirsty and began to drink. Some lifted the water to their mouths in their hands, and some stooped down and put their hands, and some stooped down and put their mouths into the water. The Lord said that only the ones who drank from their hands (There were three hundred of them) could go with him to the battle!

Gideon was afraid to go with so few, but the Lord told him to take one of his soldiers and creep over to the camp of the enemy through the darkness to listen to what they were saying.

The Midianites were as thick as grasshoppers in the valley below, and they had so many camels it was hard to count them. That night Gideon and another man crept down to their camp and listened outside one of the tents where two Midianites soldiers were talking. One was telling the other about a dream he had.

“In my dream,” He said, “I saw a loaf of bread come tumbling into our camp; it struck against a tent and it knocked down flat on the ground!”

And the other man said, “Your dream means that the Lord is going to give Gideon a great victory over us!”

When Gideon heard this he went back to get the three hundred men. He told them to get up and come with him, for the Lord would give them the victory. He put them in three different groups and gave each man a trumpet and a pitcher with a lighted lamp inside. He told them that when they came to the camp of the Midianites, they must do exactly as he did. When he blew his trumpet, they must all blow theirs and shout, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!”

In the middle of the night he and his three hundred men arrived in the camp of the Midianites . Suddenly he and all of his men blew their trumpets and broke the pichers and shouted, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!”

When the Midianites heard the noise and saw the burning lamps that had been hidden in the pitchers, they yelled in fear and ran for their lives. The Lord made them afraid both of the men of Israel and of each other, too, so that they were killing and fighting one another all over the valley.

Gideon and his men chased them as they fled across the Jordan River. The two kings of the Midianites raced ahead of him with fifteen thousand soldiers. But he caught up with them and overcame them and took the two kings captive.

So the Midianites were driven out of Canaan, and the people of Israel were no longer their slaves.

Gideon was the judge of Israel for forty years. God gave him many sons, and he lived to be an old man.

Questions:

What two miracles did God do with Gideon’s wool?

How did the Lord decide which men should be Gideon’s army?

How did Gideon’s tiny army defeat the huge Midianite army?

Have a fabulous day full of blessings.

Judges chapters 1-5

Shamgar was the next judge of Israel. He led his people against the Philistines; and all by himself, with nothing but a sharp stick and the Lord’s help, he killed six hundred of the enemy.

But when the people of Israel began to worship idols again, God let them be conquered again. This time they were slaves for twenty long years. Then the Lord gave them another judge to help them in their troubles. This judge was a woman named Deborah. She lived near Bethel in a house beneath a palm tree.

Deborah sent for a man named Barak and told him that the Lord wanted him to lead ten thousand Israeli soldiers against Sisera, the captain of the enemy army. But Barak was afraid and wouldn’t go unless Deborah went with him. Deborah said she would, but that the honor of the victory would go to a woman!

So Barak and Deborah led the ten thousand men of Israel against Sisera. Sisera called up all his reserves , including nine hundred iron chariots, and came out to fight. But the Lord gave Israel the victory.

Sisera jumped from his chariot and ran away to the tent of a woman named Jael. He didn’t know she was a friend of the people of Israel. “Give me a little water,” he begged her, “for I am very thirsty.” So she gave him some milk to drink.

“Stand in the door of your tent,” he told her, “and if anyone comes by and asks if you have seen me, tell him no.”

He was so tired that he lay down and slept. Jael took a sharp tent peg that was used to fasten the tent to the ground, went quietly over to him, and drove it into his head with a hammer, killing him.

Soon afterwards Barak came by looking for Sisera. Jael went out to meet him and said, “Come here, and I will show you the man you are looking for.” Then she took him into the tent, and there lay Sisera, dead.

So the Israelis were freed from the king of Canaan that day.

But after forty years of freedom, the people of Israel began worshipping idols again. Then the Midianites came and fought them, and made slaves of them and treated them very cruelly. They drove the Israelis from their homes, making them live in dens and caves in the mountains. They destroyed their crops, leaving little for the Israelis to eat. And they took their oxen, goats, and sheep, so that the people of Israel grew very poor and hungry.

Then, as they had before, the Israelis cried to the Lord to help them. The judge the Lord sent this time was Gideon.

Gideon was threshing wheat one day and trying to hide it from the Midianites, when the Lord came to him in the form of an angel and spoke kindly to him. Then Gideon told the Lord about the troubles the people of Israel were having because of the Midianites.

“You will free the people of Israel from the Midianites!” the Lord told him.

“But, Lord, how can I do that?” Gideon asked.

“That’s easy!” the Lord replied, “I will be with you, and you will destroy their whole army as if it were it was only one man!”

Then Gideon said to the Lord, “Please wait here while I go and get an animal to sacrifice to You.”

So Gideon went and killed a young goat, cut it up, put the meat into a basket, and brought it out to the Lord. The Lord told Gideon to lay it on a rock; then He touched the meat with the end of a stick He had in His hand, and fire flamed out of the rock and burned the sacrifice! Then the Lord disappeared.

Questions:

Why did God let His people become slaves again?

What was the name of the first woman to lead and judge Israel?

When Gideon sacrificed the goat, what happened?

Have a awesome and blessed day.

After Joshua’s death, the Israeli army continued to fight the heathen nations as the Lord had told them to; and God helped them and made them Victorious. But they stopped fighting before they had driven out all the nations of Canaan; they allowed some of the heathen nations to stay.

Then the Lord said to the people of Israel, “I brought you out of Egypt into this land I promised you. I commanded you to destroy the idols of the nations living here, and I told you never to make peace with them. But you have not obeyed me. Now I will not help you anymore. The rest of the nations shall stay, and they will tempt you to sin and cause you great trouble.”

The people of Israel wept when they heard this. But they soon forgot what the Lord had said, for they not only allowed many of the heathen to stay in Canaan, but they treated them as their friends. They even married them; the young men of Israel took heathen girls for their wives, and the Israeli girls were permitted to marry heathen men.

Then the people of Israel began worshipping idols named Baal and Ashtaroth, who were the gods of the people of Canaan. The Lord was very angry about this and sent enemies to fight against His people and to make them their slaves.

But when they turned away from the idols and turned again to the Lord and asked for His help, He helped them by raising up leaders, called judges. These men helped them fight against their masters and win. Yet, as soon as the Lord set the people free, they would forget Him and sin again by worshipping idols and ignoring the Lord. This sinning and repenting continued for more than three hundred years! During that time fifteen judges were their leaders.

The first judge was Othniel; he was the younger brother of Caleb, one of the good spies. Othniel fought against the king of Mesopotamia, who had kept the Israelis as slaves for eight years. And God helped Othniel and the men of Israel conquer their master’s army, so they were free again for the next forty years.

But after Othniel was dead the people of Israel began to worship idols again. Then the king of Moab led his army against Israel and enslaved them for eighteen years. But when the people of Israel cried to the Lord for help, the Lord appointed Ehud as their leader. He was a man of the tribe of Benjamin, and was left-handed.

Ehud made a dagger, hid it under his coat, and came to the king of Moab’s palace while the king was sitting in his summer parlor.

“I have a secret message from God for you, O king.” Ehud said to him. When the kings assistants returned. they saw that the doors of his room were locked and said to themselves, “The king must want to be alone; we’d better not go in.

But after they had waited a very long time, they took a key and opened the doors and found the king lying dead on the floor.

By this time Ehud was far away, and they couldn’t find him. Ehud went to Mount Ephraim, in the land of Canaan, and blew a trumpet to call the men of Israel to him.

“Follow me,” he told them. “The king is dead, and the Lord will help you conquer the army of Moab.”

The men of Israel followed him to the Jordan River where they fought and killed ten thousand brave soldiers of Moab; not one escaped. So the Israelis were again free from the Moabites. This freedom continued for the next eighty years.

Questions:

Why didn’t God want the Israeli young people to marry non-jews?

What were the leaders of Israel now called?

Who was the first judge?

Who was his Brother?

Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Psalm 119:90

Joshua Chapter 24 & 25

Judges Chapter 1

The men of the tribes living across the Jordan River had stayed with the Israeli army ever since crossing the river and had fought against the heathen nations in Canaan. They received a full share of the cattle, gold, silver, and anything else taken from the enemy.

Joshua called these men to him and thanked them for their help. “You have obeyed me, whatever I told you to do,” he said. “You have not let your brothers fight alone, but have stayed with them and helped them. Now go back to your homes on the other side of the Jordan. But be very careful, after you get there, to obey all the commandments Moses gave us, and to love and to serve the Lord your God with all your hearts.”

So they started back home. When they came to the Jordan River, they stopped and built a great altar, shaped like God’s altar at Shiloh, where the Tabernacle was. But God had told the Israelis not to sacrifice on any other altar but the one at the Tabernacle. When the men of the other tribes heard that they had built another altar, they were angry, and sent their armies to fight them.

Phinehas, the high priest, and ten Israeli leaders arrived ahead of the army to ask why they had built this altar.

“We want to know,” they said, “why you have built another altar to offer sacrifices on, when the Lord said we should have only one altar, the one at Shiloh. Don’t you remember how God sent a great plague on us for worshipping the idols of the Midianites and the Moabites? Don’t you remember how He punished us when Achan took the silver and gold for himself, in direct disobedience to God?”

The Tribes from across the river were very surprised. They said they had never dreamed of using the altar for sacrifices. It was just a monument, in the form of the altar at Shiloh. In years to come, they said, the people on Joshua’s side of the Jordan River might say that the tribes on their side of the Jordan River weren’t really Israelis, because they didn’t live in the Promised Land of Canaan. They could then point to the Monument as proof that they were truly people of Israel, just like the others. They fully understood, they said, that there must be no sacrificing except at Shiloh.

So then everyone was happy again.

Joshua had become an old man One day he summoned the leaders of Israel and and reminded them of all the Lord had done for them and urged them always to honor God in everything they did. Then the Lord would greatly bless and prosper them, he said.

The Lord has driven out your enemies and given you cities, fields, vineyards, and a land of your own to live in, “Joshua reminded them, “Fear the Lord and worship Him. If you don’t want to worship Him, then choose the idols you would rather worship. But as for me and my family, we will worship the Lord.”

The people answered, “God forbid that we should leave the Lord to worship idols. For it was He who brought us out of Egypt and gave us this land. We will worship the Lord, for He is our God.”

Then Joshua took a great stone and set it up beneath an oak beside the Tabernacle in Shiloh. That stone, he said, would be a witness to remind them of the promises they had made to worship only the Lord.

So, Joshua died. This godly man had lived for 110 years; and they buried him on the side of a hill.

During the forty years since they had left Egypt, the Israelis had been carrying Joseph’s bones with them. Now at last they buried them at Shechem. (It had been more than four hundred years since Joseph, wearing his coat of many colors, had gone to Shechem to find his brothers.)

Questions:

Why was everyone so angry about the new altar?

Where was the only place that sacrifices could be made?

Whose bones had been brought all the way from Egypt to be buried?

How long before this had the boy Joseph looked for his brothers at Shechem?

Joshua Chapters 16 & 17 & 18

Joshua and his troops won many, many more battles against many kings, but there was still much land remaining to be conquered.

All the people of Israel went to the city of Shiloh to set up the Tabernacle there. They had carried the Tabernacle all the way from Mount Sinai, talking it down when they travelled and setting it up again when they stopped. But they had come to Canaan to stay their long journey was ended. The Tabernacle wouldn’t have to be moved again.

The priests and Levites brought the Tabernacle to Shiloh, a city near the center of their new country, and set it up permanently as the Lord had told them to.

But although Israel had conquered only part of Canaan, they had grown tired of war and wanted rest and quiet. It seemed as though they did not want all the good land God was willing to give them.

The Lord spoke to Joshua and reminded him that a large part of the land had not yet been taken away from the Canaanites. So Joshua asked all the people how long it would be before they would be ready to continue the war against the heathen nations still living in Canaan. He asked them to choose twenty-one scouts, and Joshua sent them out to inspect the land that was still unconquered. He told them to give him a written report.

The chosen men walked through the land, made maps of it, and brought their report to Joshua in Shiloh. Then Joshua drew straws for the different tribes of Israel so that the Lord could tell them which part of the land each tribe should have. God told them to finish driving out the heathen nations so that they could have the land for their own use. Joshua promised that the Lord would help His people do this.

God said that the priests and Levites were not to own farms like the men of the other tribes, because He wanted them to stay at the Tabernacle and work for God there. But God said they could have cities of their own to live in. The priests and Levites came to Joshua and the leaders of Israel to find out what cities they could have, and they were given forty-eight cities where they could bring their wives and children and have their homes.

Questions:

What was done with the Tabernacle?

Where?

Why?

Why did the scouts make maps?

Why couldn’t the priests and Levites own farms like everyone else?

Joshua Chapters 12 & 13 & 14

When the other kings in Canaan heard how Israel had destroyed Ai, they brought all their armies together to fight against Joshua and his people.

But one of the cities, named Gibeon, refused to join the others. The people of Gibeon didn’t want to fight, for they knew that the Lord was helping the Israelis and would destroy anyone fighting them. Instead, they sent men to Joshua wearing very old clothes and worn-out shoes and carrying dry and moldy bread, pretending that they had come from another country far away.

They came to Joshua and told him. “We have come from a distant land, for we have heard of your God and of all the great things He has done for you. Our people have sent us to ask you to make a treaty with us and be friends.”

Joshua and the men of Israel didn’t ask the Lord what to do, as they should have done; they agreed at once to be friends with the people of Gibeon.

Three days later they learned the truth. These men had not come from a distant country at all, but lived close by, in Canaan, and were among the wicked nations the armies of Israel had been told to destroy.

Then Joshua called for the men of Gibeon and demanded to know why they had lied to him. They said it was because they feared for their lives, for they had lied to him. They said it was because they feared for their lives, for they had heard that God was going to destroy the people living in Canaan and was going to give their land to the Israelis. Joshua couldn’t kill them because only three days before he had promised not to. But he said they must be slaves, and work for the priests and the Levites, cutting wood and carrying the water needed at the Tabernacle;.

When the king of Jerusalem heard that the people of Gibeon had surrendered to the Israelis, he was very angry. He and four other kings put their armies together and went to Gibeon to fight against it in revenge.

Then the men of Gibeon sent a messenger to Joshua, “Quick! Come and help us,” they said, “for the kings from the mountains have come to punish us.”

Joshua and his army fought against the five kings attacking Gibeon, and the Lord made them become afraid of the Israelis and run away. But as they ran, the Lord caused a great hailstones to fall upon them out of Heaven, so that more of them were killed by hailstones than by the Israelis.

As the Israelis army was chasing them, the sun began to set; for it was evening. Joshua was afraid that God’s enemies would escape in the darkness, so he commanded the sun not to stay where it was and not to move farther across the sky.

And the sun stood still and did not go down for many hours after its usual time! That day was longer than any other day has ever been. There was no day like it either before or afterward, for the Lord, at Joshua’s request, made the sun and moon stand still in the sky so that the Israelis could keep on chasing and destroying their enemies.

Questions:

How did the men of Gibeon fool Joshua?

Why did the Israeli army protect Gibeon when the other kings attacked it?

What did Joshua tell the sun and moon to do?

Did they obey him?

Joshua Chapter 8 &9 & 10

Then Joshua sent scouts to Ai, another city of Canaan. When they came back they told him that it was a small city and not many people lived there, so only part of the Israeli army was needed to capture it. Two or three thousand men would be enough they said.

So Joshua sent about three thousand men. But when the men of Ai came out against them, the Israelis suddenly became afraid and ran, and the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of them.

Joshua didn’t know what to do . Israel had been defeated! He tore his clothes, and he and the elders of Israel lay on the ground praying until the evening. Joshua cried out to the Lord, saying, “All the people of Canaan will hear how the Israeli army has run away from its enemies; and they will gather around us on every side and kill us, until not one of us is left.”

But the Lord said, “Get Up! Why are you lying there? There is sin among the people of Israel; that is why your enemies have defeated you.”

Then the Lord told Joshua that one of the men of Israel had kept some silver and gold taken from the city of Jericho. He had taken it for himself instead of putting it into the treasury of the Lord. The Lord said He would not help the people of Israel anymore unless they punished the man who had done this.

God told Joshua to bring all the people before Him, and He would tell Joshua who the thief was. The man who had done this thing must be burned alive in punishment for stealing from the Lord and for not obeying Him. So Joshua got up early in the morning and brought all the people before the Lord, and the Lord showed him the man who was guilty. His name was Achan.

“Tell me what you have done Achan,” Joshua demanded.

Achan then admitted that he had seen a beautiful garment and some silver and a piece of gold, and that he had taken them and hidden them in the ground beneath his tent.

Joshua sent messengers who ran to Achan’s tent and found the things buried there. They brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel and laid them before the Lord.

Then Joshua and all the people took Achan and the beautiful garment, and the silver and gold, and his sons and daughters, his tent, his cattle, and everything he owned, to a nearby valley. There they were stoned to death and burned. A great heap of stones was piled over Achans dead body to show where it lay. After that the valley was called the valley of Achor, which means “The Valley of Trouble.”

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Now you can conquer the city of Ai. the Lord commanded Joshua to put all the people of Ai to death for their sins. This time, He said, the Israelis could keep the gold and silver they found, instead of putting it into the treasury of the Lord.

So Joshua and all his army attacked Ai. He sent thirty thousand men around behind the city during the night to hide where the people of Ai couldn’t see them. The rest of the army attacked from the front.

When the men of Ai looked back and saw the smoke rising, they didn’t know which way to go. Joshua and his men were in front of them, and those who had set the city on fire were behind them, so they couldn’t escape.

Then Joshua killed them all, as the Lord had commanded. But the Israelis kept the gold, silver, and cattle for themselves, for God had said that this time it was all right for them to do this.

Joshua then built an altar of great stones on Mount Ebal and wrote God’s law on it, just as Moses’ had told them to.

Questions:

Why did God let the men of Ai kill some of the Israelites?

What sin had Achan committed?

What was Achan’s punishment?

What happened when the Israelis went again to fight Ai?

Joshua Chapter’s 7 & 8

Joshua left the camp and went on foot to inspect the city of Jericho with its high walls. Glancing up, he saw a man with a sword in his hand. Joshua strode up to him. “Are you friend or foe?” he demanded.

“I am the general-in-chief of the Lords army,” the man replied. He was telling Joshua that he had come to be their leader and to show them how to win the battles against their enemies. Joshua realized that this Man was the Lord, so he fell to the ground and worshiped Him. It was the same Man who had come to Abraham’s tent long before to say that God was going to destroy Sodom. And He was the Man who had wrestled with Jacob when he was returning to Canaan from Laban’s house.

The people of Jericho had shut the city gates to stop the Israelis from coming in. But the Lord said He would give Joshua the victory anyway. He even told him how to plan his attack.

All the Israeli soldiers. He said, must march around the city once every day for six days and the priests must go with them carrying the Ark. Seven priests were to walk ahead of the Ark, blowing trumpets made of ram horns.

On the seventh day the Israelis were to march around Jericho, not once, but seven times while the priests blew the trumpets. As they finished the seventh time around, the priests must blow a loud, long blast, and all the army must give a mighty shout. Then the walls of the city would fall down flat, and the Israelites could walk right in!

Joshua told his army that only Rahab and those with her in her house would be saved alive. The Lord had commanded that all the rest of the people of Jericho must die for their sins. All the silver, gold, brass, and iron in the city belonged to the Lord and must be put into the treasury where gifts into the Lord were kept. Joshua told the people not to take any of it for themselves, for the Lord would send a great punishment upon them if they did.

The people did as the Lord commanded. The first day they all marched around the city once, the priests following behind blowing the trumpets. Then came other priests who carried the Ark.

On the second day they marched around the city again, and so it went for six days.

But on the seventh day they got up early, before it was light, and marched around the city seven times. The last time around, the priests blew a great blast on the trumpets, and Joshua called out to his army, “Shout, for the Lord has given you the city!”

They gave a mighty shout, and at that moment the walls of the city tumbled down before them, and they rushed into Jericho and captured it. Joshua told the spies who had been a Rahab’s house to protect Rahab and everyone with her, just as they had promised her. So they saved Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers, and all who were with her in the house. Afterwards the army of Israel burned the city; but the silver, gold, iron, and bronze were put into the treasury of the Lord.

Hebrews 11:30

Questions:

Who was the Man who came to Joshua to lead the Israel army?

How many times were the Israeli’s supposed to march around Jericho on each of the first six days?

How many times on the seventh day?

Then what happened?

Why was Rahab saved?

Joshua 6:1-27

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Moses My assistant is dead, and you must lead the Israelis across the Jordan River into the land I promised them. Be strong and brave, and be careful to obey all of My Laws. Then everything you do will be successful. Don’t be afraid, for I will be with you and help you wherever you go.

Then Joshua spoke to the Israeli Officers. “Go through the camp,” he said, “and announce to all the people that three days from now we will cross the Jordan River into Canaan, the Promised Land!”

Meanwhile, Joshua had already sent two spies across. They came to the city of Jericho and went into the house of a woman named Rahab. Someone told the king of Jericho that the two spies had come to the city and were at Rahab’s home and told her to bring out the men who were hiding there.

Instead, Rahab took the two men up to the flat roof of her house and hid them under some stalks of flax spread there to dry. The king’s messengers looked all over, but since they couldn’t find them, they finally went away.

After they were gone, Rahab talked with the men and said she knew that the Lord had given her country to the Israelis. The people of Canaan had already heard how the God of Israel had dried up a path for them through the Red Sea and how He had helped them in fighting against their enemies. Rahab said that when her people heard these things they were very much afraid of the people of Israel. Then she asked the two men to promise that they would remember her kindness in protecting them, and not let any of her family be killed when Israel captured the city of Jericho.

The men said that if she would keep it a secret about their being there, they would protect her. They told her to hang a red rope from the window of her house to help them recognize it again. When the Israeli army came to destroy the city, no one inside her house would be harmed.

The city of Jericho had a high wall around it, and Rahab’s house was built on the wall. The king had ordered the gates of the city closed to keep the two spies from getting away, so Rahab let the two men down by a rope on the outside of the wall. She warned them to hide in a nearby mountain for three days until the soldiers quit looking for them.

They did this, then crossed the river to tell Joshua all that had happened.

Joshua and all the people got up early the next morning and travelled to the banks of the Jordan River, where they stayed for three days. Then Joshua told them, “Get ready! Tomorrow we will cross the river, and the Lord will do wonders among you. The priests will go first, carrying the Ark. As soon as their feet touch the water, the river will stop flowing, and the priests will walk through on dry ground!”

Everything happened just as Joshua had said. The next morning the priests carried the Ark toward the river, and all the people followed them. When the priests stepped into the water at the river’s edge, the water opened up in front of them, and they walked on dry ground into the middle of the river! The priests waited there with the Ark while all the people walked past them to the other side, into the Promised Land of Canaan!

After all the people were across, the priests carrying the Ark followed. As soon as they stepped out of the river onto the shore, the river began flowing again!

The Israelis made their camp at a place called Gilgal. There they found some corn in the fields, which they roasted and ate. It was the first time they had eaten anything but manna for forty years! The next day, the manna stopped coming. For the forty years while they were in the wilderness where no grain grew, the Lord had sent manna to them every morning without fail. But in Canaan there was plenty of food, so the Lord stopped sending the manna.

Questions:

How did Rahab help the Israelis spies?

How did the Israelis get across the Jordan River?

Did the people find manna to eat in Canaan?

Why not?