CHAPTER 18

¹And the whole community of Israelites assembled at Shiloh and they set up the Tent of Meeting there, and the land was conquered before them. ²And there remained seven tribes among the Israelites that had not taken the share of their estate. ³And Joshua said to the Israelites, “How long will you be idle about coming to take hold of the land that the LORD God of your fathers has given to you? ⁴Set out for yourselves three men to a tribe, that I may send them and they may rise up and go about the land and write it out according to their estate, and come to me. ⁵And they shall share it out in seven parts. Judah will stay by its territory in the south, and the house of Joseph will stay by its territory in the north. ⁶As for you, you shall write out the land in seven parts and bring them back to me here, and I shall cast a lot for you here before the LORD our God. ⁷But the Levites have no share in your midst, for the LORD’s priesthood is their estate.” And Gad and Reuben and the half-tribes of Manasseh had taken their estate across the Jordan to the east, which Moses servant of the LORD had given them. ⁸And the men rose up and went off, and Joshua charged those who went to write out the land, saying, “Up, go about in the land and write it out and come back to me, and here I shall cast the lot for you before the LORD in Shiloh. ⁹And the men went off and passed through the land and wrote it out by towns into seven parts in a scroll, and they came back to Joshua, to the camp at Shiloh. ¹⁰And Joshua cast the lot for them in Shiloh before the LORD, and Joshua shared out the land to the Israelites according to their portions. ¹¹And the lot of the tribe of the Benjaminites fell out, and the territory by their lot came out between the Judahites and the Josephites. ¹²And they had the boundary on the northern edge from the Jordan, and the boundary went up to the flank of Jericho on the north and went up to the high country westward, and its far reaches were the Wilderness of Beth-Aven. ¹³And the boundary passed on from there to the flank of Luz, which is Bethel, to the south, and the boundary went down to Atroth Addar in the high country that is south of Lower Beth-Horon. ¹⁴And the boundary swung round south toward the sea of the high country which is opposite Beth-Horon to the south, and its far reaches were at Kiriath-Baal, which is Kiriath-Jearim, town of the Judahites. This was the western edge. ¹⁵And the southern edge was from the border of Kiriath-Jearim, and the boundary went out westward, and went out to the spring of the waters of Naphtoah. ¹⁶And the boundary went down to the edge of the high country which is opposite the Vale of Ben-Hinnom, which is in the Valley of Rephaim to the north, and it went down the Vale of Hinnom to the flank of the Jebusites on the south and down to Ein-Rogel. ¹⁷And it swung round from the north and went out to Ein-Shemesh and went out to Geliloth, which is over against the Ascent of Adummim, and it went down to the Stone of Bohan son of Reuben. ¹⁸And it passed on northward to the flank opposite the Arabah and went down to the Arabah. ¹⁹And the boundary passed on northward to the flank of Beth-Hoglah to the edge of the Jordan, and the far reaches of the boundary northward were at the tongue of the Salt Sea at the southern end of the Jordan. This was the southern boundary. ²⁰And the Jordan marked its boundary at the eastern edge. This was the estate of the Benjaminites by its boundaries all around, according to their clans. ²¹And the towns that were the Benjaminite tribe’s were Jericho and Beth-Hoglah and Emek-Keziz, ²²and Beth-Arabah and Zemaraim and Bethel, ²³and Avvim and Parah and Ophrah, ²⁴and Chephar-Ammonah and Ophni and Geba—twelve towns and their pasturelands. ²⁵Gibeon and Ramah and Beeroth, ²⁶and Mizpeh and Chephirah and Mozah, ²⁷and Rekem and Irpeel and Taralah, ²⁸and Zela-Eleph, and the Jebusite, which is Jerusalem, Gibeath, Kiriath-Jearim. Fourteen towns and their pasturelands—this was the estate of the Benjaminites according to their clans.