Joshua 9:8-24

⁸They replied to Joshua, “ If you make a peace agreement with us, we will be your servants.” But Joshua answered, “What people-group are you? Where do you come from?”

⁹The men from Gibeon answered, “We want to be your servants. We have come here from a distant land, because we have heard about the great things that your god has done. We have heard about everything that he did in Egypt to help you.

¹⁰We have heard that he enabled you to defeat the armies of two kings of the Amor people-group, on the east side of the Jordan River—Sihon, the king who ruled in Heshbon city, and Og, the king who ruled in Ashtaroth in the Bashan area.

¹¹So our leaders and the rest of our people said to us, ‘Take some food and go to talk with the Israelis. Tell them, “We want to be your servants. So make a peace agreement with us.”’

¹²Look at our bread. It was fresh and warm from having been baked on the day that we left our area, but now it is dry and moldy.

¹³Look at our leather wine bags. They were new when we filled them with wine before we left, but now they are cracked and old. Our clothes and our sandals are worn out from traveling on the long road to come here.”

¹⁴The Israeli leaders tasted the bread, but they did not ask Yahweh what to do.

¹⁵So Joshua agreed to make a peace agreement with the men from Gibeon to not kill them. All the Israeli leaders vowed to do what Joshua said in the agreement. Then the men from Gibeon returned home.

¹⁶Three days later the Israelis found out that the men from Gibeon lived nearby.

¹⁷So they went to where the men from Gibeon lived. After traveling only three days, they came to their cities: Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-Jearim.

¹⁸But the Israelis did not attack the people of those cities, because they had promised to live peacefully with them, and Yahweh had heard them promise to do that. All the Israeli people grumbled against their leaders for doing that.

¹⁹But the leaders answered, “We promised to live peacefully with them, and Yahweh, the God whom we Israelis worship, heard us promise to do that. So now we cannot attack EUP them.

²⁰This is what we will do: We will not kill them. If we kill them, God will be very angry with us and punish us because of not doing what we promised to do.

²¹So we must allow them to live. But they will cut wood for us, and they will carry water for us.” So the Israeli leaders did what they had promised.

²²Then Joshua summoned the men from Gibeon and asked them, “Why did you lie to us? Your land was near to where we had set up our tents, but you told us that you were from a distant land!

²³So now you will become our slaves. You will always be forced to cut wood and carry water for us Israeli people who worship in the temple of our God.”

²⁴The men from Gibeon replied, “We lied to you because we were afraid that you would kill us. We heard that Yahweh, your God, declared to his servant Moses that he would enable you to conquer all the people in this land and to kill all the people who lived in it.