CHAPTER 9
1 And when these things were heard, all the kings beyond Jordan, that dwelt in hilly places, and in plain places, in coasts of the sea, and in the brink of the great sea, and they that dwelt beside Lebanon, Hittite, and Amorite, Canaanite, and Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite,
2 were gathered together to fight against Joshua and Israel, with one will, and with the same accord.
3 And they that dwelt in Gibeon, heard all the things that Joshua had done to Jericho, and to Ai;
4 and they thought fellily or slyly, and took to themselves meats, and putted eld [or old] sackcloths on asses, and wine bottles broken, and sewed or patched,
5 and full eld [or old] shoes, the which were sewed together with old patches, to show their oldness; and these men were clothed with full old clothes; also the loaves, which they bare for lifelode in the way, were hard and broken into gobbets.
6 And they went to Joshua, that dwelled then in tents in Gilgal; and they said to him, and to all Israel together, We [have] come from a far land, and we covet to make peace with you.
7 And the men of Israel answered to them, and said, Lest peradventure ye dwell in the land, which is due to us by heritage, and we may not make bond of peace with you.
8 And they said to Joshua, We be thy servants. To whom Joshua said, What men be ye, and from whence came ye?
9 They answered, Thy servants came from a full far land in the name of thy Lord God; for we have heard the fame of his power, and all things which he did in Egypt,
10 and to the two kings of Amorites beyond Jordan; to Sihon king of Heshbon, and to Og king of Bashan, that were in Ashtaroth.
11 And the elder men and all the dwellers of our land said to us, Take ye meats in your hands, for the full long way; and go ye to them, and say ye, We be your servants; make ye bond of peace with us.
12 And we took hot loaves, when we went out of our houses to come to you; now they be made dry and broken, for great eldness;
13 we filled new bottles of wine; now they be broken and unsewed; the clothes and shoes, with which we be clothed, and which we have on our feet, be broken and well-nigh wasted, from the length of long way.
14 Then they took of [the] meats of these men, and they asked not counsel of the Lord.
15 And Joshua made peace with them. And when the bond of peace was made, he promised, that they should not be slain; and the princes of the multitude swore to them.
16 And after three days of the bond of peace made, the men of Israel heard, that those men dwelled in nigh place, and that they should be soon among those men.
17 And the sons of Israel moved their tents, and came in the third day into the cities of them, of which cities these be the names; Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kiriathjearim.
18 And Israel destroyed not them, for the princes of the multitude had sworn to them in the name of the Lord God of Israel. Therefore all the common people grutched against the princes of Israel;
19 and the princes answered to them, We swore to them in the name of the Lord God of Israel, and therefore we may not touch them;
20 but we shall do this thing to them; be they kept that they live, lest the ire of the Lord be stirred against us, if we forswear us to them;
21 but so live they, that they hew trees, and bear waters, into the uses of all the multitude. And while they spake these things,
22 Joshua called Gibeonites, and said to them, Why would ye deceive us by fraud, that ye said, We dwell full far from you, since ye be in the midst of us?
23 Therefore ye shall be under cursing, and none shall fail of your generation, hewing trees and bearing waters, into the house of my God.
24 Which answered, It was told to us thy servants, that thy Lord God promised to Moses, his servant, that he should betake to you all the land, and should lose all the dwellers thereof; therefore we dreaded greatly, and purveyed to our lives, and we were compelled by your dread, and we took this counsel.
25 Now forsooth we be in thine hand; do thou to us that, that seemeth rightful [or right] and good to thee.
26 Therefore Joshua did, as he said, and delivered them from the hands of the sons of Israel, that they should not be slain.
27 And in that day Joshua deemed them to be into the service of all the people, and of the altar of the Lord, and to hew trees, and to bear waters, till into present time, in the place which the Lord had chosen.