again with the "stones"

Someone asked what are these "stones" I keep referring to, and so I am including the passage of Scripture that talks about God asking the Israelites to mark out stones in remembrance of how he provided for them. My mom loves the Old Testament and especially studying the Israelites, and she has always talked to me about making these remembrances to the Lord for the things he has done. So now I am marking these events in our lives as living stones to show how God is providing for us, so that all people may know that it is because of him and nothing we did. "He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God" (Joshua 4:24).


Joshua 4:1-7, 19-24

When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, "Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight."

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."

[My paraphrase of 4:8-18: The Israelites did what they were told, and the waters of the Jordan parted for the Ark of the Covenant, and then when the people had crossed and the Ark moved out of the water and back onto dry ground, the waters went back, just as God had said.]

On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, "In the future when your descendants ask their fathers, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them, 'Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.' For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God."