CHAPTER 24 Jun. 5 
A Summary of Israel’s History
Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, their judges and their officers; and they presented themselves before God. 2Joshua said to all the people, Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, ‘Your fathers lived of old time beyond the River, even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor: and they served other gods. 3I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac. 4I gave to Isaac Jacob and Esau. I gave to Esau Mount Seir, to possess it. Jacob and his children went down into Egypt. 5I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt according to that which I did in its midst: and afterward I brought you out. 6I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and you came to the sea. The Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and with horsemen to the Red Sea. 7When they cried out to Yahweh, He put darkness between you and the Egyptians and brought the sea on them, and covered them; and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt; and you lived in the wilderness many days. 8I brought you into the land of the Amorites that lived beyond the Jordan; and they fought with you; and I gave them into your hand. You possessed their land; and I destroyed them from before you. 9Then Balak the son of Zippor king of Moab arose and fought against Israel. He sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you; 10but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you still. So I delivered you out of his hand. 11You went over the Jordan and came to Jericho. The men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your hand. 12I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; not with your sword, nor with your bow. 13I gave you a land whereon you had not laboured, and cities which you didn’t build, and you live in them. You eat of vineyards and olive groves which you didn’t plant. 
Israel Urged to Choose between Yahweh and Idols
14Now therefore fear Yahweh, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth. Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh. 15If it seems evil to you to serve Yahweh, choose this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. As for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.16The people answered, Far be it from us that we should forsake Yahweh to serve other gods; 17for it is Yahweh our God who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way in which we went, and among all the peoples through the midst of whom we passed. 18Yahweh drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve Yahweh; for He is our God. 19Joshua said to the people, You can’t serve Yahweh; for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your disobedience nor your sins. 20If you forsake Yahweh and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you evil and consume you, after He has done you good. 21The people said to Joshua, No, but we will serve Yahweh. 22Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you yourselves have chosen Yahweh, to serve Him. They said, We are witnesses. 23Now therefore put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to Yahweh, the God of Israel. 24The people said to Joshua, We will serve Yahweh our God, and we will listen to His voice. 25So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. 26Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Yahweh. 27Joshua said to all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us; for it has heard all the words of Yahweh which He spoke to us. It shall be therefore a witness against you, lest you deny your God. 28So Joshua sent the people away, every man to his inheritance. 
The Death of Joshua
29It happened that, after these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Yahweh, died, being one hundred and ten years old. 30They buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathserah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash. 31Israel served Yahweh all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work of Yahweh that He had worked for Israel. 32They buried the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, in Shechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. They became the inheritance of the children of Joseph. 33Eleazar the son of Aaron died. They buried him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim

Commentary

24:2 Righteous Abraham was “gathered to his people” (or ancestors), on death (Gen. 25:8); and they were idolaters. Believers and unbelievers all go to the same place at death; it’s not true that the good go to Heaven and the bad to ‘hell’. The separation between sheep and goats happens at the day of judgment at Christ’s return.
24:10 Balaam, in his heart, didn't want to bless Israel; he wanted to curse them so he could get his hands on the riches Balak promised him if he did so (Num. 22,23). Balaam knew if God had told him to bless Israel, there was no way of changing things. But God here says that He refused to hear Balaam's prayer to curse Israel. It seems that Yahweh read Balaam's latent, unexpressed desires as prayer to Him. When we are too weak or sick to pray, God still reads our situations as prayer, even if unexpressed in so many words.
24:12 Jacob’s last words claim that he had taken Shechem from the Amorites “with mysword and with my bow" (Gen. 48:22). These very words are alluded to here and in Ps. 44:1-6, where the Spirit says that the land was given to Israel not on account of their bow and sword. Even at the end of his life, Jacob's old self-reliance was still not totally gone; his sense that through his own effort he could bring about the fulfilment of God's promises for Him. In this area, the weakness of Jacob remained. This gives us patience with our fellow believers who never seem to ‘get it’ in some spiritual areas; and comforts us in our own failures to achieve perfection in other aspects of spirituality.
24:14 Compare Joshua’s earlier over positive statements (see on 22:2; 23:9). Now in his spiritual maturity it seems he came to a final sense of realism about sin, obedience and Israel’s failure.
24:15 As for me… we will serve- Joshua realized that Israel, whom he had seen as so obedient (see on 22:2; 23:9), actually weren’t serving God at all. 
24:16 Far be it from us- The kind of hypocrisy of 22:18 [see note there].
24:19,23 Joshua at the end of his life came to a final realism as to the real nature of sin, and the ultimate demands which God makes upon human life in practice.
24:24 We will listen to His voice- The people don’t respond to the command to throw away their idols by saying ‘Yes OK, we shall do so’; instead they say that they will hear God’s word. Interest in the Bible, reading it and even enthusing about it, can be done whilst at the same time still serving idols.
24:30 Buried him in the border of his inheritance- As if they expected him to be resurrected and then enter into it at Messiah’s coming.