Suddenly the river stopped! A wall of water formed ten miles upstream.  The rest of it flowed down to the sea. Seeing this, the priests walked to the middle of the riverbed and stood on dry ground. Then the people started moving across the river.

Joshua then said to the twelve men Israel had selected, “Each of you pick up a large stone from where the priests are standing. Put it on your shoulders and take it to the other side of the river.” Joshua then took another twelve stones and built a monument in the middle of the river, next to where the priests were standing.

The people looked at Joshua, and he was exalted in their eyes. They knew God was with him just like he had been with Moses. 

When they had all crossed the river, Joshua said to the priests, “Come up from the middle of the riverbed.” As soon as the priests were on the banks of the river, the waters crashed down the riverbed and returned to its flooded condition, as it had been before.

Joshua took the people to a place called Gilgal, where they set up camp. Then he had them build a memorial with the twelve stones. He said, “In the future, children will see this monument and ask, ‘why are these stones here?’ Their parents will tell them about this day, when God stopped the Jordan River so his people could cross over on dry ground. All the nations of the earth will know that the hand of God, the Lord of all the earth, is powerful.” 

The people of Canaan heard how God stopped the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross over on dry ground. Terror spread throughout the cities of the land.

Joshua told all the men of Israel they had to be circumcised. This hadn’t been done for the entire 40 years the people had been in the wilderness. 

Soon after this, the people celebrated Passover. The very next day, the manna stopped appearing and it never came back. From that day on, the people were to eat the food from the land of Canaan.