Along The Way (July 4 - 10, 2025)
Scroll to the day you would like to read and click the plus icon to read the day’s scripture.
-
Deuteronomy 32:1-35
“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak;
let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
May my teaching drop like the rain,
my speech condense like the dew,
like gentle rain on grass,
like showers on new growth.
For I will proclaim the name of the Lord,
ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock, his work is perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God, without deceit,
just and upright is he;
yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him,
a perverse and crooked generation.
Do you thus repay the Lord,
O foolish and senseless people?
Is not he your father who created you,
who made you and established you?
Remember the days of old;
consider the years long past;
ask your father, and he will inform you,
your elders, and they will tell you.
When the Most High apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;
the Lord’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share.
He sustained him in a desert land,
in a howling wilderness waste;
he shielded him, cared for him,
guarded him as the apple of his eye.
As an eagle stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
as it spreads its wings, takes them up,
and bears them aloft on its pinions,
the Lord alone guided him;
no foreign god was with him.
He set him atop the heights of the land
and fed him with produce of the field;
he nursed him with honey from the crags,
with oil from flinty rock,
curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
with fat of lambs and rams,
Bashan bulls and goats,
together with the choicest wheat —
you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.
Jacob ate his fill;
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked.
You grew fat, bloated, and gorged!
He abandoned God who made him
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They made him jealous with strange gods;
with abhorrent things they provoked him.
They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
whom your ancestors had not feared.
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth.
The Lord saw it and was jealous;
he spurned his sons and daughters.
He said, ‘I will hide my face from them;
I will see what their end will be,
for they are a perverse generation,
children in whom there is no faithfulness.
They made me jealous with what is no god,
provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
provoke them with a foolish nation.
For a fire is kindled by my anger
and burns to the depths of Sheol;
it devours the earth and its increase
and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap disasters upon them,
spend my arrows against them:
wasting hunger,
burning consumption,
bitter pestilence.
The teeth of beasts I will send against them,
with venom of things crawling in the dust.
In the street the sword shall bereave,
and in the chambers terror
for young man and woman alike,
nursing child and old gray head.
I said, “I will make an end of them
and blot out the memory of them from humankind,”
but I feared provocation by the enemy,
for their adversaries might misunderstand
and say, “Our hand is triumphant;
it was not the Lord who did all this.”
They are a nation void of sense;
there is no understanding in them.
If they were wise, they would understand this;
they would discern what their end would be.
How could one have routed a thousand
and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
the Lord had given them up?
Indeed, their rock is not like our Rock;
our enemies are fools.
Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom,
from the vineyards of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison;
their clusters are bitter;
their wine is the poison of serpents,
the cruel venom of asps.
Is not this laid up in store with me,
sealed up in my treasuries,
for the day of vengeance and recompense,
for the time when their foot shall slip?
Because the day of their calamity is at hand;
their doom comes swiftly.
-
Deuteronomy 32:36-52
Indeed, the Lord will vindicate his people,
have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
neither bond nor free remaining.
Then he will say, ‘Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge,
who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their libations?
Let them rise up and help you;
let them be your protection!
See now that I, even I, am he;
there is no god besides me.
I kill, and I make alive;
I wound, and I heal;
and no one can deliver from my hand.
For I lift up my hand to heaven
and swear, As I live forever,
when I whet my flashing sword
and my hand takes hold on judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and will repay those who hate me.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
and my sword shall devour flesh —
with the blood of the slain and the captives,
from the long-haired enemy.’
Praise, O heavens, his people;
worship him, all you gods!
For he will avenge the blood of his children
and take vengeance on his adversaries;
he will repay those who hate him
and cleanse the land for his people.”
Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua son of Nun. When Moses had finished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them, “Take to heart all the words that I am giving in witness against you today; give them as a command to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this law. This is no trifling matter for you but rather your very life; through it you may live long in the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.”
Moses’s Death Foretold
On that very day the Lord addressed Moses as follows: “Ascend this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites for a possession; you shall die there on the mountain that you ascend and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin, because both of you broke faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites. Although you may view the land from a distance, you shall not enter it, the land that I am giving to the Israelites.”
-
Deuteronomy 33 & 34
Moses’s Final Blessing on Israel
This is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the Israelites before his death. He said,
“The Lord came from Sinai
and dawned from Seir upon us;
he shone forth from Mount Paran.
With him were myriads of holy ones,
at his right, a host of his own.
Indeed, O favorite among peoples,
all his holy ones were in your charge;
they marched at your heels,
accepted direction from you.
Moses charged us with the law
as a possession for the assembly of Jacob.
There arose a king in Jeshurun
when the leaders of the people assembled,
the united tribes of Israel.
May Reuben live and not die out,
even though his numbers are few.”
And this he said of Judah,
“O Lord, give heed to Judah,
and bring him to his people;
strengthen his hands for him,
and be a help against his adversaries.”
And of Levi he said,
“Give to Levi your Thummim
and your Urim to your loyal one,
whom you tested at Massah,
with whom you contended at the waters of Meribah,
who said of his father and mother,
‘I regard them not’;
he ignored his kin
and did not acknowledge his children.
For they observed your word
and kept your covenant.
They teach Jacob your ordinances
and Israel your law;
they place incense before you
and whole burnt offerings on your altar.
Bless, O Lord, his substance,
and accept the work of his hands;
crush the loins of his adversaries,
of those who hate him, so that they do not rise again.”
Of Benjamin he said,
“The beloved of the Lord rests in safety —
the Most High surrounds him all day long —
and he rests between his shoulders.”
And of Joseph he said,
“Blessed by the Lord be his land,
with the choice gifts of heaven above
and of the deep that lies beneath,
with the choice fruits of the sun
and the rich yield of the months,
with the finest produce of the ancient mountains
and the abundance of the everlasting hills,
with the choice gifts of the earth and its fullness
and the favor of the one who dwells on Sinai.
Let these come on the head of Joseph,
on the brow of the prince among his brothers.
A firstborn bull — majesty is his!
His horns are the horns of a wild ox;
with them he gores the peoples
all together to the ends of the earth;
such are the myriads of Ephraim,
such the thousands of Manasseh.”
And of Zebulun he said,
“Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out,
and Issachar, in your tents.
They call peoples to the mountain;
there they offer the right sacrifices,
for they suck the affluence of the seas
and the hidden treasures of the sand.”
And of Gad he said,
“Blessed be the enlargement of Gad!
Like a lion he lives;
he tears at arm and scalp.
He chose the best for himself,
for there a commander’s allotment was reserved;
he came at the head of the people;
he executed the justice of the Lord
and his ordinances with Israel.”
And of Dan he said,
“Dan is a lion’s whelp
that leaps forth from Bashan.”
And of Naphtali he said,
“O Naphtali, sated with favor,
full of the blessing of the Lord,
possess the west and the south.”
And of Asher he said,
“Most blessed of sons be Asher;
may he be the favorite of his brothers,
and may he dip his foot in oil.
Your bars are iron and bronze,
and as your days, so is your strength.
There is none like God, O Jeshurun,
who rides through the heavens to your help,
majestic through the clouds.
He subdues the ancient gods,
shatters the forces of old;
he drove out the enemy before you
and said, ‘Destroy!’
So Israel lives in safety,
untroubled is Jacob’s abode
in a land of grain and wine,
where the heavens drop down dew.
Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you,
a people saved by the Lord,
the shield of your help
and the sword of your triumph!
Your enemies shall come fawning to you,
but you shall tread on their backs.”
Moses Dies and Is Buried in the Land of Moab
Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain — that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees — as far as Zoar. The Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.” Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command. He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day. Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his sight was unimpaired, and his vigor had not abated. The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the period of mourning for Moses was ended.
Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him, and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.
-
Joshua 1
God’s Commission to Joshua
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’s assistant, saying, “My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory. No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall lead this people to possess the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Preparations for the Invasion
Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, “Pass through the camp and command the people, ‘Prepare your provisions, for in three days you are to cross over this Jordan, to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God gives you to possess.’ ”
But to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh Joshua said, “Remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.’ Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan. But all the warriors among you shall cross over armed before your kindred and shall help them, until the Lord gives rest to your kindred as well as to you, and they also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to your own land and take possession of it, the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan to the east.”
They answered Joshua, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you, as he was with Moses! Whoever rebels against your orders and disobeys your words, whatever you command, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.”
-
Joshua 2 & 3
Spies Sent to Jericho
Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and spent the night there. The king of Jericho was told, “Some Israelites have come here tonight to search out the land.” Then the king of Jericho sent orders to Rahab, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out the whole land.” But the woman took the two men and hid them. Then she said, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they came from. And when it was time to close the gate at dark, the men went out. Where the men went I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you can overtake them.” She had, however, brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax that she had laid out on the roof. So the men pursued them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. As soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.
Before they went to sleep, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land and that dread of you has fallen on us and that all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you. The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below. Now then, since I have dealt kindly with you, swear to me by the Lord that you in turn will deal kindly with my family. Give me a sign of good faith that you will spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them and deliver our lives from death.” The men said to her, “Our life for yours! If you do not tell this business of ours, then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us the land.”
Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the outer side of the city wall and she resided within the wall itself. She said to them, “Go toward the hill country, so that the pursuers may not come upon you. Hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers have returned; then afterward you may go your way.” The men said to her, “We will be released from this oath that you have made us swear to you if we invade the land and you do not tie this crimson cord in the window through which you let us down and you do not gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your family. If any of you go out of the doors of your house into the street, they shall be responsible for their own death, and we shall be innocent, but if a hand is laid upon any who are with you in the house, we shall bear the responsibility for their death. But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be released from this oath that you made us swear to you.” She said, “According to your words, so be it.” She sent them away, and they departed. Then she tied the crimson cord in the window.
They departed and went into the hill country and stayed there three days, until the pursuers returned. The pursuers had searched all along the way and found nothing. Then the two men came down again from the hill country. They crossed over, came to Joshua son of Nun, and told him all that had happened to them. They said to Joshua, “Truly the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover, all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before us.”
Israel Crosses the Jordan
Early in the morning Joshua rose and set out from Shittim with all the Israelites, and they came to the Jordan. They camped there before crossing over. At the end of three days, the officers went through the camp and commanded the people, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place. Follow it, so that you may know the way you should go, for you have not passed this way before. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, a distance of about two thousand cubits; do not come any nearer to it.” Then Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” To the priests Joshua said, “Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass on in front of the people.” So they took up the ark of the covenant and went in front of the people.
The Lord said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses. You are the one who shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, ‘When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.’ ” Joshua then said to the Israelites, “Draw near and hear the words of the Lord your God.” Joshua said, “By this you shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites: the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan. So now select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, come to rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap.”
When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people. Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing toward the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firmly on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.
-
Joshua 4
Twelve Stones Set Up at Gilgal
When the entire nation had finished crossing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Select twelve men from the people, one from each tribe, and command them, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood, carry them over with you, and lay them down in the place where you camp tonight.’ ” Then Joshua summoned the twelve men whom he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe. Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, so that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial forever.”
The Israelites did as Joshua commanded. They took up twelve stones out of the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told Joshua, carried them over with them to the place where they camped, and laid them down there. (Joshua set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood, and they are there to this day.)
The priests who bore the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord had commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua. The people crossed over in haste. As soon as all the people had finished crossing over, the ark of the Lord and the priests crossed over to the front of the people. The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over armed before the Israelites, as Moses had ordered them. About forty thousand armed for war crossed over before the Lord to the plains of Jericho for battle.
On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him, as they had stood in awe of Moses all the days of his life.
The Lord said to Joshua, “Command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant to come up out of the Jordan.” Joshua therefore commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” When the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up from the middle of the Jordan and the soles of the priests’ feet touched dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks, as before.
The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. Those twelve stones that they had taken out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal, saying to the Israelites, “When your children ask their parents in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel crossed over the Jordan here on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we crossed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty and so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
-
Joshua 5
The New Generation Circumcised
When all the kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan to the west and all the kings of the Canaanites by the sea heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted, and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the Israelites.
At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites a second time.” So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath-haaraloth. This is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the warriors, had died during the journey through the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt. Although all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people born on the journey through the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the Israelites traveled forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the warriors who came out of Egypt, perished, not having listened to the voice of the Lord. To them the Lord swore that he would not let them see the land that he had sworn to their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So it was their children, whom he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised, for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way.
When the circumcising of all the nation was done, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.
The Passover at Gilgal
While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal, they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and roasted grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.
Joshua’s Vision
Once when Joshua was by Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you one of us or one of our adversaries?” He replied, “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and he said to him, “What do you command your servant, my lord?” The commander of the army of the Lord said to Joshua, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.