Joshua 5

5 ¹ When all the kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites along the sea, heard that our Father had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the people of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts melted, and they had no spirit left in them because of the people of Israel.

² At that time our Father said to Joshua, "Make yourself flint knives and circumcise the people of Israel again, a second time."

³ So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the people of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth, the Hill of the Foreskins. ⁴ This is why Joshua circumcised them: all the people who had come out of Egypt — the males, all the men of war — had died in the wilderness along the way after they came out of Egypt. ⁵ All the people who came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness along the way, after they came out of Egypt, had not been circumcised. ⁶ For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation — the men of war who came out of Egypt — had perished, because they did not obey the voice of our Father. To them our Father swore that he would not let them see the land he had sworn to their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. ⁷ So he raised up their children in their place, and Joshua circumcised them, for they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised along the way. ⁸ When the circumcision of the whole nation was complete, they stayed in camp until they were healed.

⁹ Then our Father said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you." So the name of that place has been called Gilgal to this day.

¹⁰ While the people of Israel were camped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, on the plains of Jericho. ¹¹ The day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. ¹² And the manna stopped the day after they ate from the produce of the land. The people of Israel had no more manna; that year they ate from the harvest of the land of Canaan.

The Commander of the Father's Army

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

¹⁴ "Neither," he replied. "I have now come as the commander of the army of our Father." Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in worship and said to him, "What does my lord have to say to his servant?"

¹⁵ The commander of the army of our Father said to Joshua, "Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.