Joshua 4:4-13

4So Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the sons of Israel, one man from each tribe; 5and Joshua said to them, “1Cross again to 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 sons of Israel. 62This shall be a sign among you; 3when your children ask 4later, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ 7then you shall say to them, ‘That the 5waters 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 6memorial to the sons of Israel forever.”

8So the sons of Israel did exactly 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 7the encampment and put them down there. 9Then Joshua set up twelve 8stones 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, then the ark of the Lord and the priests crossed in front of the people. 129The sons of Reuben, the sons of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over in battle formation before the sons of Israel, just as Moses had spoken to them; 13about forty thousand equipped for war, crossed for battle before the Lord to the desert plains of Jericho.