Joshua gives land to the other tribes
1All the people of the Israelite congregation came together in the town of Shiloh and they put up the tent of the Lord. They had defeated the land of Canaan, 2but 7 of the tribes did not have their own land yet. 3Joshua asked the Israelites: ‘How long will you wait before you take the land that the Lord, the God of our forefathers, has given you? 4You must choose 3 men from each tribe. I will send them to go through the land and they must write down how big every part of the land is and bring it to me. 5You must divide the land into 7 parts. The Judah tribe must stay on their land in the south and the Joseph tribe must stay on their land in the north. 6You must write down where each of the 7 parts is and bring it to me. Then I will draw_lots and ask the Lord our God to show us which part each tribe must get.
7The Levi tribe does not get a part of the land with you because their part is to be priests and to serve the Lord. And the tribes of Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh have already received their land, east of the Jordan River. Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave that land to them.’
8The men who had to write down where the 7 parts of the land were, went immediately. Joshua told them: ‘You must go through the land and write down how big all the places are and you must bring it to me. Then I will draw_lots here, in the town of Shiloh, in front of the Lord to see which part of land each tribe will get.’
9The men went through the land to all the towns and they divided the land into 7 parts. They wrote it down in a book and then they went back to Joshua in the camp in the town of Shiloh. 10Joshua went into the tent of the Lord at Shiloh and he drew_lots to see which part of land each tribe of the Israelites must get.
The land of the Benjamin tribe
11When Joshua drew_the_first_lot, the Benjamin tribe got their land between the land of the people of Judah and the land of the descendants of Joseph. 12The northern border begins at the Jordan River and then it goes on north of the city of Jericho up to the mountains to the west and into the Beth-Aven Desert. 13From there, the border goes south to the town of Luz, which is Bethel, and then down to the town of Ataroth-Addar on the hill south of the town of Lower-Beth-Horon. 14Then the border turns and goes to the west, south of the mountain near the town of Beth-Horon and it goes on to the town of Kiriath-Baal, which is Kiriath-Jearim, a town of the people of Judah. That is the western border. 15The southern border begins at Kiriath-Jearim in the west and then it goes west to the Nephtoah Fountain. 16Then the border goes up to the mountain near the Ben-Hinnom Valley, north of the Rephaim Valley and then to the Ben-Hinnom Valley past Mount Jebusite to En-Rogel. 17Then the border turns north to the Shemesh Fountain and then it goes on to the town of Geliloth, near the Adummim Pass and then down to the stone of Bohan, son of Reuben. 18Then it goes north to the border at the Jordan Valley and then down the valley. 19Then the border turns north to near Beth-Hoglah and up to the north end of the Salt Sea where the Jordan River flows into the Salt Sea. That is the southern border. 20The Jordan River is the eastern border. This is the land that the families of the Benjamin tribe got.
21The towns and cities of the families in the Benjamin tribe were Jericho, Beth-Hoglah, the Keziz Valley, 22Beth-Arabah, Zemaraim, Bethel, 23Avvim, Parah, Ophrah, 24Kephar-Ammoni, Ophni and Geba. There were 12 towns with their villages. 25The Benjamin tribe also got the towns of Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth, 26Mizpah, Kephirah, Mozah, 27Rekem, Irpeel, Taralah, 28Zelah, Haeleph, the Jebusite city, which is Jerusalem, Gibeah and Kiriath. There were 14 towns with their villages. These were the towns of the families in the Benjamin tribe.
