Rahab and the Spies

Before entering Canaan, Joshua secretly sends two spies from Shittim to scout Jericho. They go to the house of a prostitute named Rahab, whose house is built into the city wall. The king has them hunted, but Rahab hides them on her roof under stalks of flax and sends the soldiers off on a false trail toward the fords of the Jordan. Then she confides to the spies that the whole land is trembling: everyone has heard how the LORD dried up the Red Sea and defeated Sihon and Og. “The LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.” She asks them to spare her and her family. They swear they will: she must tie a scarlet cord in her window and gather her family in her house. She lets them down by a rope; they hide in the hills for three days, then return to tell Joshua, “Truly the LORD hath delivered into our hands all the land.”