 The Battle of Jericho
Joshua 1:1 to 6:1
1:1 Yahweh said to Joshua "Moses is dead. It’s up to you now. If you will be brave, I’ll be here to help you steal every parcel of land on which you step. So get stepping."
1:12 Joshua reminded the tribes of Gad and Reuban that they had promised to come along and help murder Canaanites, even though they had already been given some nice land. They agreed and left their women and children behind and joined the invasion force.
2:1 Joshua sent two spies to check out the great walled city of Jericho. When the spies got to the city one of the first things they checked out was a prostitute. Her name was Rahab. Sure she was a hooker but maybe she was poor and just trying to get through college or something. Anyway the spies hid out in Rahab’s house for a while and used it as a base of operations. Maybe Rahab was in rehab, who knows.
Somehow the king of Jericho found out about all this sneaky spy business. One of Rahab's friends probably snitched on them for crack money.
So the king sent agents to the whore’s house to investigate. "Help, help, enemy spies were here!” Rahab improvised. “You just missed them, they went that a-way. If you hurry you can catch them." The morons from the Jericho Central Intelligence Agency bumbled off in the direction she pointed. Meanwhile Joshua’s spies were actually hiding up on Rahab’s roof. “They bought it” She gloated. And since her house was actually part of the city wall, she was able to let the spies down outside the city from her window using a bright red cord she just happened to have handy.
The spies were very grateful for the help escaping the stooges from the JCIA. They totally would have been goners if not for the quick thinking,
self serving tart. They told Rahab to put a red thread in her window and her family would be spared a bloody stabbing when the Israelites took over
and massacred the citizens of Jericho. Rahab informed the spies that morale in the city was low. The people of the city were terrified of Yahweh and
his bloodthirsty Israelites. The two spies reported back to Joshua and told him that the people of Canaan were ready to faint at the very thought of merciless murdering Israelites.
3:1 Joshua ordered the army to prepare to cross the Jordan River into Canaan. The carriers of the secret weapon, the Ark of the Covenant with Yahweh inside, led the way.
The troops were warned once again not to get closer than about 3000 feet to God's box at the very closest, or risk an ugly disfiguring death. When they got to the river the water magically parted and piled up in a big heap upstream as they crossed. After they crossed the troops stacked up twelve rocks from the river bottom in a sort of memorial to the impossible event.
Because people in general are terrified of Yahweh’s anger problem, the troops feared and obeyed Joshua the same way they had feared and obeyed Moses.
5:2 Before they went any farther Joshua made doubly sure that each and every man in the camp had been thoroughly circumcised with some very sharp knives. They were all checked to see if they could use a bit of a touch-up.
The people ate fresh produce from the land of Canaan beginning that year and the time of eating that greasy manna crap was over.
 The angelic captain of Yahweh's angelic army flew down to Earth and hung around and chatted with Joshua for a little while, after first insisting that Josh take off his shoes in his angelic presence.
6:1 At long last the tribes laid siege to the great city of Jericho. The war to invade and conquer Canaan had begun proper. The city’s defenders barred the gates and brave soldiers manned the walls. But Joshua had no intention of storming the gates or scaling the walls. He ordered his troops to form a parade. He had them march around and around the city while loudly blowing trumpets. This majorly annoyed the defenders of Jericho.
Joshua’s troops continued annoying the enemy by blowing the trumpets day and night for a whole week. On the seventh day as they marched around they trumpeted their trumpets extra loud, and they also shouted at the city. Suddenly the acoustical resonance from the sound waves coming from the trumpets, perhaps magically amplified to hundreds of decibels, plus all the shouting, compromised the structural integrity of the city’s thick stone walls and they shattered, crumbled, and fell down. Thanks to trumpets and a strumpet the Israelites could now rush in for the kill.
The Israelites spared Rahab and her immediate family of course, as they had promised, but since her house was part of the wall it must have been destroyed, and the red
thread buried in rubble. She must have been hiding out somewhere else with the thread. Meanwhile all the other people in the city of Jerico, young, old,
little babies, all the friends and fellow citizens Rahab had betrayed, they were all viciously butchered.
Not to take any chances on any sort of reprisals, Joshua ordered the death of all animals in Jericho; cats, dogs, horses, they all fell to the chopping of the
sword and the stabbing of the spear. In fact the only thing spared in the whole city, besides the traitorous whore, were all the precious metals they
could find. The gold and silver and the other highly valuable stuff like that was all salvaged.
The news of the massacre of all the innocent citizens of Jericho soon reached the other people living in the region of Canaan and they were greatly shocked, greatly outraged,
and desperately afraid for their lives.
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