Joshua - The Old Testament

¹ When Jabin king of Hazor heard about this, he sent word to Jobab king of Merom, to the king of Shimron, to the king of Achshaph

² and to the kings in the northern highlands, in the plain south of Chinneroth, and those in the lowlands and on the slopes of Dor to the west.

³ To eastward and to westward lived the Canaanites: in the highlands, the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites and Jebusites; the Hivites, at the foot of Hermon in the area of Mizpah.

⁴ They set out with all their troops, a people as numerous as the sands of the sea, with a huge number of horses and chariots.

⁵ These kings, having all agreed on a meeting place, came and set up camp together at the Waters of Merom, to fight Israel.

⁶ Yahweh then said to Joshua, 'Do not be afraid of them, for by this time tomorrow I shall hand them all over, cut to pieces, to Israel; you will hamstring their horses and burn their chariots.'

⁷ With all his warriors Joshua caught them unawares near the Waters of Merom and fell on them.

⁸ Yahweh put them at Israel's mercy and they defeated them and pursued them as far as Sidon the Great, and as far as Misrephoth to the west, and as far as the Vale of Mizpah to the east; they harried them until not one of them was left alive.

⁹ Joshua treated them as Yahweh had told him; he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots.

¹⁰ Joshua then turned back and captured Hazor, putting its king to the sword. Hazor in olden days was the capital of all these kingdoms.

¹¹ In compliance with the curse of destruction, they put every living creature there to the sword. Not a living soul was left, and Hazor was burnt to the ground.

¹² All these royal cities and all their kings Joshua put to the sword in compliance with the curse of destruction, as Moses, servant of Yahweh, had ordered.

¹³ Yet of all these towns standing on their mounds, Israel burned none, apart from Hazor, burnt by Joshua.

¹⁴ All the spoils of these towns, including the livestock, the Israelites took as booty for themselves. But they put all the human beings to the sword till they had destroyed them completely; they did not leave a living soul.

¹⁵ What Yahweh had ordered his servant Moses, Moses in turn had ordered Joshua, and Joshua carried it out, leaving nothing undone of what Yahweh had ordered Moses.

¹⁶ In consequence, Joshua captured this entire country: the highlands, the whole Negeb and the whole of Goshen, the lowlands, the Arabah, the highlands and lowlands of Israel.

¹⁷ From Mount Halak, which rises towards Seir, to Baal-Gad in the Vale of Lebanon at the foot of Mount Hermon, he captured all their kings, struck them down and put them to death.

¹⁸ For many a day Joshua made war on all these kings;

¹⁹ no city had made peace with the Israelites except the Hivites who lived at Gibeon; all the rest had been captured in battle.

²⁰ For Yahweh had decided to harden the hearts of these men, so that they would engage Israel in battle and thus come under the curse of destruction and so receive no quarter but be exterminated, as Yahweh had ordered Moses.

²¹ Joshua then went and wiped out the Anakim of the highlands, of Hebron, of Debir, of Anab, of all the highlands of Judah and of all the highlands of Israel; he delivered them and their towns over to the curse of destruction.

²² No Anakim were left in the territory of the Israelites, except at Gaza, Gath and Ashdod.

²³ Joshua captured the entire country, just as Yahweh had told Moses, and he gave it as heritage to Israel, to be shared out between their tribes. And the country had rest from warfare.