The Israelites Enter Canaan

Title ideas:The Israelites enter [invade] Canaan [Land].Joshua leads the people through the Jordan River [water].

Two men who had spied [observed / scouted / gone to see] Jericho city came back and reported to Joshua, “The people of Canaan Land are afraid of us!”

So Joshua led the Israelites to set up their camp [their tents] beside [close to the Jordan River [on its east side].

After three days, Joshua sent messengers to instruct the all the Israelites: “Our priests [religious leaders] will carry the Lord’s sacred Covenant Box into the Jordan River!”

“Follow them! But stay a kilometer [half a mile] behind them!”

It was the time of the year when the Jordan River was full of water, deep and wide.

As the priests stepped into the edge of the Jordan River, the Lord stopped the river water flowing. The water piled up like a wall.

Soon there was no water at the place where the priests were waiting to cross Jordan River.

The priests carrying the Lord’s Covenant Box stood in the middle of River Jordan while all the Israelites walked across [around them] on the dry riverbed.

Joshua told one man from each of the twelve tribes, “Take a big stone from the riverbed and carry it to where we shall camp [put up our tents] today!”

After all the people had walked across the riverbed, Joshua ordered the priests, “Bring the Lord’s Covenant Box from the riverbed to [its western] shore!”

When the priests had come to high ground beyond the riverbed, the river’s water flowed back and rose high and wide [like it had been before].

The Israelites set up camp between Jordan River and Jericho City. There the men who carried the twelve stones from Jordan River set them in a pile.

Joshua said, “Someday your children will ask you, Why are these twelve stones here? Reply to them: Here is where we Israelites crossed the Jordan River on dry ground!

“The Lord made a dry path across Jordan River for us, in the same way that he made a dry path across the [Red] Sea for us, when Moses led us out of Egypt.

“This [reminder] will help people everywhere on earth to know that the Lord is a strong God, so that people will honor and obey the Lord forever!”

Soon, Canaanite messengers went to all of the kings in Canaan Land, telling them: “The Lord dried up River Jordan, and the Israelites have crossed over it!”

This [news] made many kings so afraid that they became discouraged and did not want to fight against the Israelites.

On the day that the Israelite [tribes] crossed River Jordan on dry ground, the Lord made the people see that Joshua was now a very great [strong] leader.

The Israelites respected Joshua until he died, in the same way that they had respected Moses.

During their forty years in the wilderness, none of the Israelite boys had been circumcised [to signal that they belonged to the Lord and would obey him]. So the Lord ordered them, “You must circumcise all your boys and men, before you go farther into Canaan Land!”

On the fourteenth day of that month, the Israelites ate the Passover feast, [as the Lord had commanded them to do in the laws that he gave to Moses].

The following day, the Israelites began to eat food grown in Canaan Land. Same day, no more manna [food] fell from the sky. From that day [forwards], Israelites only ate food grown in Canaan Land.