So the king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not of Bnei-Yisrael but a remnant of the Amorites; however, Bnei-Yisrael had sworn a covenant with them. Yet Saul had tried to eradicate them in his zeal for Bnei-Yisrael and Judah.)
When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Adonai relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Now withdraw your hand.” The angel of Adonai was then by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
“Since King Manasseh of Judah has done these abominations, and has outdone in wickedness all that the Amorites who were before him did, and has also made Judah sin with his idols,
You found his heart faithful before You and made the covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Perizzite, Jebusite and the Girgashite to his seed. You have fulfilled Your words, for You are righteous.
“I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like cedars and as strong as oaks— yes, I destroyed his fruit from above and his roots from beneath.
I will remove the blood from his mouth, forbidden food from between his teeth. Whoever is left will be a remnant for our God. He will be like a leader in Judah, and Ekron will be like a Jebusite.
You must utterly destroy them—the Hittites , the Amorites , the Canaanites , the Perizzites , the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as Adonai your God has commanded you.
“When Adonai your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out many nations before you—the Hittite and the Girgashite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you—
If it seems bad to you to worship Adonai, then choose for yourselves today whom you will serve—whether the gods that your fathers worshipped that were beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will worship Adonai!”
Joshua said, “By this you will know that the living God is among you, and that He will certainly drive out from before you the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite and the Jebusite.
But the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem, so the Jebusites continued to live with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Come, please, and let us turn aside into this city of the Jebusites and lodge in it.”
