So the king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not from the Israelites. Instead they were a remnant of the Amorites. Although the Israelites had made a pact with them, Saul attempted to destroy them in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.
When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity. He said to the angel who was annihilating the people, “Enough! Now stay your hand.” The angel of the Lord was at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
“Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, things more evil than all that the Amorites did, and has also caused Judah to sin with his idols,
and found his heart faithful before You. And You made a covenant with him to give him the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites—to give it to his seed. Indeed, You have fulfilled Your words because You are righteous.
Obey what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars. He was strong as the oaks, yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots below.
I will take away the bloodshed from its mouth, and the abominations from between its teeth. Even it will be a remnant for our God. It will be like a tribe of a clan in Judah, and Ekron like the Jebusites.
But you shall completely destroy them: namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you,
When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to possess and has driven out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you,
If it is displeasing to you to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve, if it should be the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites’ land where you are now living. Yet as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
And Joshua said, “By this you will know that the living God is among you, and that He will thoroughly drive out the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites from before you.
However, the tribe of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites living in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites live with the tribe of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
When they were near Jebus, it was getting very late. The servant said to his master, “Come, let us turn aside to this Jebusite city and spend the night in it.”