¹And it was the case after many days, after the Lord had given Israel rest from all their enemies round about, that Joshua had become old and advanced in years, ²and Joshua called all Israel – its elders and its heads and its judges and its officers – and he said to them, “I have become old; I am advanced in years, ³and you have seen everything that the Lord your God has done to all these nations before you, for it is the Lord your God who fights for you. ⁴See how I have assigned these remaining nations to you as an inheritance to your tribes, from the Jordan, with all the nations which I cut off, with the Great Sea in the west. ⁵And it is the Lord your God who drives them back at your presence and who dispossesses them in front of you, so that you inherit their land as the Lord your God has said to you. ⁶So be of very good courage to keep and do everything that is written in the book of the law of Moses, so not to depart from it to the right or to the left, ⁷and not to go among these nations – these that remain with you – and you shall not mention the name of their gods, and you shall not adjure by them, and you shall not serve them, and you shall not worship them. ⁸But rather, cling to the Lord your God, as you have done so far. ⁹For the Lord has dispossessed great and powerful nations before you, and as for you, no man has withstood you up to this day. ¹⁰One man from you will pursue a thousand, for it is the Lord your God who is fighting for you, as he has said to you. ¹¹So be very much on your guard for your lives to love the Lord your God. ¹²For if you turn back at all and cling to the remnant of these nations – these that remain with you – and intermarry with them, and you go into them, and they into you, ¹³then know for certain that the Lord your God will not continue to dispossess these nations before you, and that they will be a trap and a snare and a scourge to you in your sides, and as thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁴And look, I am going the way of the whole of the earth today, but you have known with all your heart and with all your soul that not one word has failed from all the good words which the Lord your God has spoken concerning you – everything has come about for you; not one word of it has failed, ¹⁵and it will come to pass, that just as every good word that the Lord your God spoke to you has come about with you, so shall the Lord bring upon you every bad word until he has destroyed you in this good land which the Lord your God has given you, ¹⁶in your transgression of the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, if you depart and serve other gods and bow down to them, so that the Lord's anger is kindled against you, and you quickly perish from the good land which he has given you.”