Excerpts from Genesis and Joshua:

Genesis 11

1: Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
2: As men moved eastward, ^[1] they found a plain in Shinar ^[2] and settled there.
3: They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
4: Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5: But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.
6: The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
7: Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
8: So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
9: That is why it was called Babel ^[3]--because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

1. 2 Or from the east; or in the east
2. 2 That is, Babylonia
3. 9 That is, Babylon; Babel sounds like the Hebrew for confused.

Genesis 35 (English-NIV)

1: Then God said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau."
2: So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes.
3: Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone."
4: So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem.
5: Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.
6: Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan.
7: There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, ^[1] because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.
8: Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried under the oak below Bethel. So it was named Allon Bacuth. ^[2]
9: After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, ^[3] God appeared to him again and blessed him.
10: God said to him, "Your name is Jacob, ^[4] but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel. ^[5]" So he named him Israel.
11: And God said to him, "I am God Almighty ^[6]; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body.
12: The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you."
13: Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him.
14: Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it.
15: Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel. ^[7]

1. 7 El Bethel means God of Bethel.
2. 8 Allon Bacuth means oak of weeping.
3. 9 That is, Northwest Mesopotamia; also in verse 26
4. 10 Jacob means he grasps the heel (figuratively, he deceives).
5. 10 Israel means he struggles with God.
6. 11 Hebrew El-Shaddai

7. 15

Bethel

house of God.

Joshua 6 (English-NIV)

1: Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.
2: Then the LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.
3: March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.
4: Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.
5: When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in."
6: So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, "Take up the ark of the covenant of the LORD and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it."
7: And he ordered the people, "Advance! March around the city, with the armed guard going ahead of the ark of the LORD."
8: When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the LORD went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the LORD's covenant followed them.
9: The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding.
10: But Joshua had commanded the people, "Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!"
11: So he had the ark of the LORD carried around the city, circling it once. Then the people returned to camp and spent the night there.
12: Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.
13: The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the LORD and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the LORD, while the trumpets kept sounding.
14: So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.
15: On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times.
16: The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the people, "Shout! For the LORD has given you the city!
17: The city and all that is in it are to be devoted ^[1] to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute ^[2] and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.
18: But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it.
19: All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the LORD and must go into his treasury."
20: When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city.
21: They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it--men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
22: Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, "Go into the prostitute's house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her."
23: So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.
24: Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD's house.
25: But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho--and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
26: At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: "Cursed before the LORD is the man who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: "At the cost of his firstborn son will he lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest will he set up its gates."
27: So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.

1. 17 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the LORD, often by totally destroying them; also in verses 18 and 21.

2. 17

innkeeper

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