Joshua 4:6-21

61Let this be a sign among you, so that 2when your children ask 3later, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ 7then you shall say to them, ‘Because the 4waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.’ So these stones shall become a 5memorial to the sons of Israel forever.”

8Thus the sons of Israel did as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, just as the Lord spoke to Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel; and they carried them over with them to 6the lodging place and put them down there. 9Then Joshua set up twelve 7stones in the middle of the Jordan at the place where the feet of the priests who carried the ark of the covenant were standing, and they are there to this day. 10For the priests who carried the ark were standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything was completed that the Lord had commanded Joshua to speak to the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua. And the people hurried and crossed; 11and when all the people had finished crossing, the ark of the Lord and the priests crossed before the people. 128The sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over in battle array before the sons of Israel, just as Moses had spoken to them; 13about 40,000 equipped for war, crossed for battle before the Lord to the desert plains of Jericho.

149On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; so that they 10revered him, just as they had 11revered Moses all the days of his life.

15Now the Lord said to 12Joshua, 16“Command the priests who carry 13the ark of the testimony that they come up from the Jordan.” 17So Joshua commanded the priests, saying, “Come up from the Jordan.” 18It came about when the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord had come up from the middle of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were 14lifted up to the dry ground, that the waters of the Jordan returned to their place, and went over all its banks as before.

19Now the people came up from the Jordan on the 15tenth of the first month and camped at Gilgal on the eastern edge of Jericho. 201617Those twelve stones which they had taken from the Jordan, Joshua set up 18at Gilgal. 21He said to the sons of 19Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’