Then Joshua set up [a second monument of] twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan at the place where the feet of the priests who carried the ark of the covenant were standing, and they are there to this day. For the priests who carried the ark were standing in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the LORD had commanded Joshua to tell the people, in accordance with everything that Moses had commanded Joshua. The people hurried and crossed [the dry riverbed]; and when all the people had finished crossing, the ark of the LORD and the priests crossed over in the presence of the people. The sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh crossed over armed for battle before the [other] sons of Israel, just as Moses had spoken to them; about 40,000 [men] armed and equipped for war crossed for battle before the LORD to the desert plains of Jericho. On that day the LORD magnified and exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; so they feared him [with profound awe and reverence], just as they had feared Moses all the days of his life. Now the LORD said to Joshua, “Order the priests carrying the ark of the Testimony to come up out of the Jordan.” So Joshua commanded the priests, saying, “Come up out of the Jordan.” When the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD had come up from the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of their feet were raised up to the dry land, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place, and flowed over all its banks as before. Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth [day] of the first month and encamped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. And those twelve stones which they had taken from the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal. He said to the sons of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you crossed over, just as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; so that all the peoples of the earth may know [without any doubt] and acknowledge that the hand of the LORD is mighty and extraordinarily powerful, so that you will fear the LORD your God [and obey and worship Him with profound awe and reverence] forever.”
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