Joshua 14 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Here is what the people of Israel received as their land in Canaan — what Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the ancestral clans of the Israelite tribes distributed to them.

Their land was assigned by drawing lots, just as Yahweh had commanded through Moses — for the nine and a half tribes.

Moses had already given land to the other two and a half tribes on the east side of the Jordan, but he hadn't given any land among them to the Levites.

The descendants of Joseph had become two tribes — Manasseh and Ephraim — and the Levites weren't given any territory of their own. They only received towns to live in, with pastureland for their herds and flocks.

The people of Israel did exactly what Yahweh had commanded Moses — that's how they divided up the land.

The people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, "You know what Yahweh said to Moses, the man of God, about you and me at Kadesh-barnea."

"I was forty years old when Moses, Yahweh's servant, sent me from Kadesh-barnea to scout out the land. I brought back an honest report — I told him exactly what I thought."

"My brothers who went up with me made the people lose their nerve, but I followed Yahweh my God with my whole heart."

"That day Moses made a solemn promise: 'The land your feet have walked on will belong to you and your descendants forever, because you followed Yahweh my God with your whole heart.'"

"And now look — Yahweh has kept me alive, just as he said he would, for forty-five years since Yahweh made that promise to Moses while Israel was traveling through the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old."

"I'm still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out. My strength for battle and for everything else is exactly the same as it was then."

"So give me this hill country that Yahweh promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakim live there in large, fortified cities. But if Yahweh is with me, I'll drive them out, just as he said."

Joshua spoke a word of good over Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his land.

That's why Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day — because he followed Yahweh, the God of Israel, with his whole heart.

Hebron used to be called Kiriath-arba — named after Arba, the greatest man among the Anakim. And the land rested from war.