Latest / Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan / August 17, 2026 - Joshua 9 & Proverbs 11:21-24

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August 17, 2026 - Joshua 9 & Proverbs 11:21-24 · Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bob Reading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength with God's word letting the way.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Josiah Smith, lead pastor of Compass South Valley.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today is Monday, August 17th, 2026.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Listen intently to God's written word.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua 9.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country, and in the lowland, all along the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hives, and the Jebusites heard of this, they gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they on their part acted with cunning and went and made ready provisions, and took worn out sacks for their donkeys and wineskins, worn worn out and torn and mended, with worn out patched sandals on their feet, and worn out clothes, and all their provisions were dry and crumbly.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they went to Joshua in the camp of Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, We have come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, Perhaps you live among us, then how can we make a covenant with you?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: They said to Joshua, We are your servants.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Joshua said to them, Well, who are you?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And where do you come from?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: They said to him, From a very distant country your servants have come, because of the name of the Lord your God.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have heard a report of him, and all that he did in Egypt, and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites, who was beyond the Jordan, to Sion, the king of Heshbon, and to Og, King of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So our elders and all the inhabitants of our country said to us, Take provisions in your hand for the journey, and go to meet them, and say to them, We are your servants.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Come now, make a covenant with us.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Here is our bread.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was still warm when we took it from our houses as our food for the journey on the day we set out to come to you.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: But now, behold, it is dry and crumbly.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: These wineskins were new when we filled them, and behold, they have burst, and these garments and sandals are ours are worn out from the very long journey.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Joshua made peace with them, and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of three days, after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors, and that they lived among them.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the people of Israel set out and reached their cities on the third day.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now their cities were Gibeon, Chefhirah, Bearoth, and Kiriath Jerim.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the people of Israel did not attack them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But all the leaders said to all the congregation, We have sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, and now we may not touch them.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: This we will do to them.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath that we swore to them.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the leader said to them, Let them live.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they became cutters of wood and drawers of water for all the congregation, just as the leaders had said of them, Joshua summoned them, and he said to them, Why did you deceive us, saying, We are very far from you when you dwell among us?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now therefore you are accursed, and some of you shall never be anything but servants, cutters of wood, and drawers of water for the house of my God.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: They answered Joshua, because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we feared greatly for our lives because of you, and did this thing.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And now, behold, we are in your hand.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us, do it.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he did this to them and delivered them out of the hand of the people of Israel, and they did not kill them.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: But Joshua made them that day cutters of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the Lord to this day in the place that he should choose.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs eleven, twenty-one through twenty four.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished, but the offspring of the righteous will be delivered.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: The desire of the righteous ends only in good, the expectation of the wicked in wrath.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: One gives freely, yet grows all the richer.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now Joshua 9 has some interesting things going on.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we have uh this is right after the victory, the decisive victory that Joshua and Israel had over the king of Ai, and really the city of AI.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so here in chapter 9, the conquest of Israel, the kings and the kingdoms that have fallen, Jericho certainly is a part of that, is starting to make its rounds in Canaan.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: People are hearing about their military victory, their military prowess.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a sense in which some people are afraid, the Gibeonites, and there are some people that actually grow emboldened.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we see at the beginning of Joshua 9, there are these kings.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: It says beyond the Jordan in the hill country that essentially are like, let's come together, let's form a pact.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we have the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have six different kingdoms that are all kind of banding together in order to conquer Israel.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, part of kind of the even the logic of this from a literary perspective is you can think back to Joshua, I believe Joshua 7, where the sin of Achan caused Israel to lose a battle to small AI.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was uh described as a small kind of town, which is why initially they only sent um a small number of troops over there because they were feeling pretty confident about that victory, and yet they suffered a loss.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you got to think from the perspective of all of these kings and kingdoms, uh, the Hittites, the Amersite Emirites, the Canaanites, and so on, uh, that they're feeling actually kind of confident that they're going, okay, well, if they lost to a place like AI, uh, if we all band together, there's no way that we lose.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this false confidence, actually, that they receive and that they have, I would say, because of the sin of Israel, because specifically of the sin of Achan.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a kind of a reverberation of the consequences of sin, the consequences of disobedience by Achan in Joshua 7.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So as a result of his sin, we see kind of a direct correlation here of now people are banding together, they're feeling confident.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, maybe that was there was more fear in the hearts of these kings and kingdoms, but but now they're feeling like, okay, well, if we if we simply just, you know, become brothers in arms, at least for this battle, then we'll take care of this, no problem.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: But there is some level of people still kind of hearing the stories uh and and being fearful.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So in verse three, it says, But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they come up with this uh elaborate plan.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: They come up with this sort of grand deception.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: They put on all of these worn-out clothes, they bring worn-out food, they're wearing worn-out sandals, they've got worn-out wineskins, and of course, the the whole purpose of that is to give the appearance of being on a long journey.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what they tell to Joshua.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we are from a far, a far away city.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have come because we've heard the stories of your God.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: We've heard the stories and even they talk about the Exodus event, which continues to kind of dominate the themes here.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, that started all the way back in the book of Exodus, but it dominated Leviticus, it dominated Numbers, it dominated Deuteronomy, and we see it here even being prominent, that there are other nations that know about Israel because of Exodus, because of what God did in defeating the Egyptians, uh, even specifically with the ten plagues, and then ultimately delivering Israel from bondage and slavery to uh Egypt.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so they come and they have this elaborate plan, they've got all these worn-out clothes, they've got this dry and brittle bread, and they're making this claim that, hey, we we've heard the stories, we know who your God is, make a covenant with us.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, that they're asking to be received into the nation as if they were their own.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Joshua at first is a little skeptical.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do we how do we know that that you're not among us?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that language is is intended to communicate, hey, you could just be from down the road.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're we're heading in that direction.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: We've been told that that land is ours.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're basically going to take it.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do we how do we know that you're not just from down the road?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and of course, they make all these assurances and they give all of their tests, and we'll look at the wineskins and look at this and look at that.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: That we've traveled very far.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, uh, they are able to deceive Joshua and the elders, it says, of Israel.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want you to notice here, this is probably one of the most key verses in Joshua 9, is here uh in verse 14.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So they they have this dialogue back and forth with Gibeon and the leaders of Gibeon.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, they they are kind of deciding if they're gonna make this covenant.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, even verse 12, here's our bread.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was still warm when we took it from our houses as our food, but look, it's it's it's all crumbly and it's dry.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, these wineskins were new when we filled them, and behold, they have bursts, and these garments, and these sandals are worn out for the very long journey.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so verse 14, very key here.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It says, So the men took of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't help but think of the Proverbs.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, but that's where our mind is because we're reading the Proverbs both in this Bible reading plan, and we're also there on Sunday mornings.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I couldn't help but think of the Proverbs that talks about there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is destruction.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't even help but think about Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all of your ways.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths, he will make your path straight.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So here in verse 14, what do they do?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: They don't do that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the men took some of their provisions, but they did not ask counsel from the Lord.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So there's literally this pattern in Israel.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: They enter into the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's this pattern of victory, followed by kind of a falling away, if you will, uh a sinful engagement or a foolish act that is then followed by kind of a renewal of uh of the covenant or remembering of who God is.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's up and down and up and down, right?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: We had we had uh a down moment in chapter seven with the sin of Achan.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then we had an up moment in chapter eight with the victory over AI and the renewal of the covenant, and now we've got another down moment here in chapter nine where it says they uh do not seek counsel from the Lord.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't ask.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't prayerful, they weren't wise.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and they just skipped right over it.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're not learning their lesson.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's a continued sort of hardness of heart that plagues the nation of Israel.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: So verse 15, and Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation uh swore to them.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So there's deception going on, and uh there's um trickery happening, and uh, of course Joshua ends up falling for it, the elders of Israel end up falling for it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Again, they're not seeking counseling from the Lord, they don't ask.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they feel pretty confident.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they're still riding the the wave of defeating AI after that that sore victory that they or sore uh loss that they endured.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure what's going on, but here we see again, they're just skipping over.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're not relying on the Lord, they're not trusting in the Lord uh with all their heart.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we continue to see this pattern of up and down and up and down, and it's just a great reminder for us in the nitty-gritty of our lives.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, this is the book of Proverbs as a whole.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: We need to look to the Lord for wisdom.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: If we want true knowledge, if we want true wisdom, we gotta go to the Lord, which is why, by the way, that our church has the that one of the distinctives, distinctive five, is that we have a genuine, genuine reliance on prayer.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because we we don't want to be like Israel here in Joshua 9.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: We want to ask, we want to seek counsel from the Lord, we want to ask counsel from the Lord.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, what would you have us do?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: How would you have us act?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: How would you have us live?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us, give us wisdom.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: What are our next steps?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Order our steps, Lord.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Man makes his plans, but the Lord directs his steps.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to ask counsel from the Lord.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: We want to regularly go to the Lord and be dependent on him in prayer.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I often on Sundays when I talk about the prayer, the prayer meetings, I try to make a big deal out of them because it's it's a big deal.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: When we don't ask, we see here an example, a great example in scripture.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: When they don't ask, when they don't go to the Lord and ask for counsel, they are deceived.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: They they have a misstep because of their refusal to go directly to the Lord.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just another plug for our upcoming prayer prayer night coming up on August 26th at initial point.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: High school would love for you to be there.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love for you to learn from Joshua 9 and uh to ask counsel from the Lord through prayer together with your church family.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here in Proverbs 11, we're continuing just to kind of slowly chip away.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and one of the reasons why, by the way, that we're doing this is so that we can really slow down and meditate and kind of mull over, chew on um smaller bits of scripture.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, if you remember that the setup of this plan, we're doing, of course, one chapter a day in the Old Testament.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we've done Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, and now we're nine chapters into to the book of Joshua.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the wisdom literature, so that's Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the wisdom literature, as it's often referred to as, uh, we are going to go through that entire body of literature once a year.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So basically every single year, we will go through Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so here in Proverbs specifically, we're wanting to slow down.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're wanting to be able to kind of meditate on the truth that we are seeing and really seek wisdom from the Lord.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some interesting things here in Proverbs 11, 21 through 24, um, there's this continued dichotomy of the wicked and the righteous, even in verse 21.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished, but the offspring of the righteous will be delivered.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there is a sense in which this parable, or shouldn't say parable, this proverb is kind of future-oriented.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: There, of course, today with our justice system and things like that, there's some level of the evil person receiving justice.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we also know that this world often that comes with it some level of injustice, meaning there are there are criminals, there are those who are considered evil and wicked that do, from our perspective, get away with their wickedness, that get away with their evil.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: But here is a comforting verse in Proverbs 1121 be assured that an evil person will not go unpunished.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord sees all, he knows all.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, when the wicked stand before the Lord, they will be judged and they will receive their proper punishment for their evil deeds.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a great comfort there.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the offspring of the righteous, on the other hand, will be delivered.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we've talked about this before, even in Hebrews.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's the two kind of judgments that are referenced in the New Testament, the bima seat.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: The word bima is a Greek word that means platform, that is for Christians, that is more about rewards.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have the great white throne judgment that's talked about in Revelation, that is for unbelievers.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: So uh in the great white throne judgment, here's what's going to be true an evil person will not go unpunished.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And even at the bimis, the offspring of the righteous will be delivered.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And here's an interesting proverb in verse 22 like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so physical beauty, uh, you know, it it has some level of value.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's it's not the main thing, it's not the only thing, but there's something to be said about physical beauty.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so here we see like a gold ring and a pig's snout.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: So gold obviously is precious, it's valuable, like a gold ring and a pig's snout.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like these things don't go together, is a beautiful woman without discretion.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So beauty without wisdom really is this sort of uh kind of contradiction.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's a paradox, it's an oxymoron, right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like like a gold ring and a pig snout.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're taking something precious, something valuable, and you're putting it in in an animal that is kind of known for, of course, being dirty and and and gross.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the the very vivid analogy here in Proverbs 11:22.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like a gold ring and a pig snout is a beautiful woman without discretion, um, without wisdom, without um the things that are needed uh that flow ultimately from the fear of the Lord.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think even Proverbs 1, knowledge and discretion are mentioned there as the kind of the purpose of Proverbs.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: So beauty, of course, has some value to it, like like the analogy here states, a gold ring.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but without wisdom, without discretion, without knowledge, without these things that are rooted in the fear of the Lord, ultimately, uh it's it's I mean, how how meaningful is it?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just a great proverb uh to sit with.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh of course, here in verse 24, very common verse about finances one gives freely, yet grows all the richer.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Another withholds what he should give and only suffers once.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So some proverbs here, some wisdom about giving and generosity.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you could certainly overblow this and make it seem as if you know, if you give all your money away, that you're gonna grow richer and richer and richer.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not necessarily what it's saying here.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but of course, even Jesus himself teaches it's it's more blessed uh to give than to receive.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see that wisdom stated here in the Proverbs as well.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: So Proverbs has just been so rich, and again, we're we're only in chapter 11, and we're gonna continue just to take it uh kind of chunks, small chunks at a time, and really just want you to slow down, meditate, I'd say even journal, uh, seek to really kind of apply the nitty-gritty of each of these proverbs into your own life as we walk through it, and hopefully that that's a blessing to you as you commit to doing just that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Podcast.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Keep reading, keep growing.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.