Joshua 24:20-30

20 If you forsake Yahweh, and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you evil, and consume you, after that he has done you good.

21 The people said to Joshua, No; but we will serve Yahweh.

22 Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen you Yahweh, to serve him. They said, We are witnesses.

23 Now therefore put away, [said he], the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to Yahweh, the God of Israel.

24 The people said to Joshua, Yahweh our God will we serve, and to his voice will we listen.

25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.

26 Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Yahweh.

27 Joshua said to all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us; for it has heard all the words of Yahweh which he spoke to us: it shall be therefore a witness against you, lest you deny your God.

28 So Joshua sent the people away, every man to his inheritance.

29 It happened after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Yahweh, died, being one hundred ten years old.

30 They buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathserah, which is in the hill-country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash.

Joshua 24:20-30 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOSHUA 24

This chapter gives us an account of another summons of the tribes of Israel by Joshua, who obeyed it, and presented themselves before the Lord at Shechem, Jos 24:1; when Joshua in the name of the Lord rehearsed to them the many great and good things the Lord had done for them, from the time of their ancestor Abraham to that day, Jos 24:2-13; and then exhorted them to fear and serve the Lord, and reject idols, Jos 24:14; and put them upon making their choice, whether they would serve the true God, or the gods of the Canaanites; and they choosing the former, he advised them to abide by their choice, Jos 24:15-24; and made a covenant with them to that purpose, and then dismissed them, Jos 24:25-28; and the chapter is concluded with an account of the death and burial of Joshua and Eleazar, and of the interment of the bones of Joseph, Jos 24:29-33.