Joshua 14

₁Here is the land that the Israelites got in the land of Canaan. The priest Eleazar and Joshua, son of Nun, and the leaders of the tribes of the Israelites gave them their land. ₂They drew_lots to see what part of the land they should give to each of the 9 and a half tribes. The Lord had told Moses to do this. ₃Moses had given land to the other 2 and a half tribes east of the Jordan River, but he had not given land to the Levites. ₄There were 13 tribes that had to get land, because the descendants of Joseph were 2 tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim, but just 12 tribes got land because they did not give land to the Levites. The Levites got only towns to live in and fields for their animals. ₅The Israelites did what the Lord had told Moses to do. They divided the land and they gave part of the land to each tribe.

₆When the people of Judah came to Joshua in the town of Gilgal, Caleb went to talk to Joshua. Caleb was the son of Jephunneh, from the Kenaz tribe. Caleb said to Joshua: ‘You know what the Lord said when we were in the town of Kadesh-Barnea. The Lord talked to Moses, the man of God, about you and me. ₇I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from the town of Kadesh-Barnea to be a spy in the land. I had to come back and tell him what I had really seen. ₈The other spies said things that made our people afraid, but I did not stop trusting in the Lord. ₉That day Moses promised me and he said that the Lord was his Witness. He said the land that I saw would always belong to me and my descendants because I kept on trusting in the Lord. ₁₀The Lord has let me live for these past 45 years after He told Moses to make that promise. The Israelites were then still walking through the desert, and now I am 85 years old. ₁₁But I am still as strong as I was on that day when Moses sent me. I can still go to war and I can come and go when I want to. ₁₂Now you must give me this hill_country which the Lord promised me on that day. You were there. You heard the spies say that the Anakite people lived there and they had big towns with walls around them. But if the Lord is with me, I will defeat them. He promised that He would do it.’

₁₃Joshua blessed Caleb and he gave the city of Hebron to Caleb and his descendants. ₁₄That is why Hebron belongs to Caleb, son of Jephunneh, still today. It is his town because he kept on trusting the Lord.

₁₅Before that time, the name of Hebron was Kiriath-Arba, because Arba had been one of the most important men of the Anakite people.

There was no more war in the land. The land rested after all the wars.