Jos 18 | EE | STEP | All the people of Israel met together at Shiloh. There they put up the tent where they met with God. They now ruled all the land.

Joshua 18

Joshua gives land to the other tribes

1 All the people of Israel met together at Shiloh. There they put up the tent where they met with God. They now ruled all the land. 2 But Joshua still had not given 7 tribes a part of the land for themselves. ^{▼▼18:2 Verse 1. Shiloh was near the middle of the land. It was easy for everyone to get there.}

3 Joshua asked them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you the land. How long will you wait before you take it? 4 Choose 3 men from each tribe. I will send them to look at all the land, and to see what it is like. They must say what they find in each part. Then they must come back to me. 5 You must make it into 7 parts. Judah is to stay in its land to the south, and Joseph’s people are to remain in their land in the north. 6 You must write down what each of the 7 parts look like. Then I will ask God to help me to choose which part I will give to each tribe. I will use lots to decide. 7 The Levites will not have any of the 7 parts of the land. This is because their part is to serve the LORD God. And Gad, Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh already have land on the east side of the river Jordan. Moses, the servant of the LORD, gave it to them.’

8 The chosen men started to go to describe the land. ‘Go and look at the land. Write down what you find’, Joshua told them. ‘Then come back to me in Shiloh. I will use the lots in front of the LORD here.’

9 So the men left and went all through the land. They wrote about each town in a book. They wrote about each of the 7 parts of the land. Then they went back to Joshua in the tents at Shiloh.

10 At Shiloh, Joshua stood in front of the LORD. He used the lots to decide which part of the land each tribe should have.

Benjamin’s part of the land

11 The lot showed that the first part of the land was for Benjamin, family by family. It was between the land that Joshua gave to the tribes of Judah and Joseph.

12 The north side of their land began at the river Jordan, and went up the hills to the north of Jericho. From there it went west into the hills, to the desert of Beth Aven. 13 The edge of their land went on to the south of Luz (that is Bethel) to Ataroth Addar. That is on the hill south of Lower Beth Horon.

14 From this hill, the edge of their land went south along the west side to Kiriath Baal (that is Kiriath Jearim). This town belonged to the people of Judah. This was the west edge of Benjamin’s land.

15 The south edge went from the edge of Kiriath Jearim to the waters of Nephtoah. 16 Then it went to the foot of the hill across the Valley of Ben Hinnom. This was north of the Valley of Rephaim. It continued down the Hinnom valley south of the Jebusite city to En Rogel. 17 Then it went north to En Shemesh. It went on to Geliloth, opposite the valley of Adummim. Then it went to the stone of Bohan, son of Reuben. 18 It continued to the north of Beth Arabah down into the Arabah. 19 Then it went north of Ben Hoglah to the north end of the Salt Sea. This was at the south end of the river Jordan. This was the south edge of Benjamin’s land.

20 The Jordan was the west edge of their land.

These are the edges of the land that Joshua gave to the families of the tribe of Benjamin.

21 These are the cities that Joshua gave to the tribe of Benjamin:

Jericho, Beth Hoglah, Emek Keziz, 22 Beth Arabah, Zemaraim, Bethel, 23 Avvim, Parah, Ophrah, 24 Kephar, Ammoni, Ophni and Geba. There were 12 towns and their villages.

25 Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth, 26 Mizpah, Kephirah, Mozah, 27 Rekem, Irpeel, Taralah, 28 Zelah, Haeleph, the Jebusite city (that is, Jerusalem), Gibeah and Kiriath. These were 14 towns and their villages.

Joshua gave these cities to the families of Benjamin’s tribe, to live in.