Israel Chooses to Serve the Lord

Joshua 24 (KJV)

Joshua gathered all the Children of Israel to Shechem for a message from God. The message reviewed Israel's descendents before Abraham who 'served other gods' to Israel's present state in the Promised Land.

Israel was given the word not to serve other gods as their ancestors did, but to serve the Lord. Joshua said, "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (v. 15). Israel replied to Joshua, "God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods...(v. 16)[.] Israel acknowledged that it was God who delivered them from Egypt and throughout their journey to Canaan. God had done good for Israel. Yet, Joshua warned them, "If ye forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good" (v. 20). The people chose to serve the Lord.

"So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God. So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance" (vs. 25-28).

"And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash. And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel" (vs. 29-31).

"And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph. And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill that pertained to Phinehas his son, which was given him in mount Ephraim" (vs. 32,33).