9 “Therefore, keep the terms of this covenant and obey them so that you may be successful in everything you do. 10 You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God—the heads of your tribes, your elders, your officials, every Israelite man, 11 your infants, your wives, and the resident foreigners living in your encampment, those who chop wood and those who carry water— 12 so that you may enter by oath into the covenant the Lord your God is making with you today. 13 Today he will affirm that you are his people and that he is your God, just as he promised you and as he swore by oath to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

19 but all the leaders told the whole community, “We swore an oath to them in the name of the Lord God of Israel! So now we can’t hurt them. 20 We must let them live so we can escape the curse attached to the oath we swore to them.” 21 The leaders then added, “Let them live.” So they became woodcutters and water carriers for the whole community, as the leaders had decided. 22 Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said to them, “Why did you trick us by saying, ‘We live far away from you,’ when you really live nearby? 23 Now you are condemned to perpetual servitude as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”