Joshua had been chosen to lead the Israelites into Canaan, and this entailed more work for Gabriel and me. The Almighty did not talk directly to Joshua as He did to Moses, but sent Gabriel, or rather one of his messenger angels, with the messages. My job was to organise the battles, of which I was assured there would be plenty. But first we had to get across the River Jordan. It seemed the sensible way was to hold the waters back as we had done with the sea outside Egypt, so I got Joshua to form the Israelites into a military style parade with the Ark of the Covenant in the lead and the Levite band behind it. The army followed them and finally the people. They had to march in silence. I tested their faith by allowing the priests carrying the Ark to actually step into the water before giving the signal to stop it flowing.

That accomplished, I got them to camp in front of the powerful city of Jericho. While Joshua sent some spies into the city to assess its defences I discussed with the Almighty how to achieve victory. He suggested a remarkable plan. March in silence round the city outside the walls once a day for six days then seven times on the seventh day. On the last time sound all the trumpets and the people to shout as loud as possible. Meanwhile my angels spent six days generating an atmosphere of fear in Jericho, then on the seventh we all arranged ourselves against the inside of the city wall. At the sound of the shout we all pushed and the wall fell over. It was all demolished except one little but which supported the house where a prostitute lived. She had supported the spies and they in return had promised her freedom. The Jericho citizens were so shocked that the Israelite army was able simply to walk in and slaughter all the citizens (except of course the prostitute and her family).

Satan was conspicuous by his absence during this battle, and I thought he had been so badly beaten in the fight over Moses body that he was unable to do anything for the time being. However he was just watching for that sneaky moment when he could disrupt the plans. One of the things the Almighty had decreed was that no booty should be taken from Jericho, but Satan persuaded a man called Achan to loot a house and take what he wanted. He also sent a spirit of overconfidence to Joshua before the next battle. The next town was a small one called Ai, and Joshua simply sent one battalion of soldiers to take it. They returned soundly beaten! I hurriedly told Gabriel to get Joshua to pray, which he, Joshua, had omitted to do before the battle. Achan's sin was brought to light as a consequence of that prayer, and after he had been suitably punished by death, the Almighty gave the go ahead to attack the town again and this time capture it.

The rest of the conquest went well as Joshua took care to pray about each battle and the people obeyed the Almighty. They had been instructed to kill all the Canaanites and generally did so. This might seem harsh to you Christians reading this, but you do not know how evil these people were. The Almighty had informed Abraham 400 years earlier that they would be so evil that for the good of the rest of mankind they would have to be destroyed, and He reinforced His words by destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. You can be sure that He got Gabriel's angels to spread the news around to give the Canaanites a chance to reform, but they turned even further away from the Almighty until He had to destroy them. So it was Joshua's forces who carried out the punishment.

There were some Canaanites who were not killed however. These were mainly ones who fled to the countryside or the hills away from the towns and cities. Later these escapees were to cause the Israelites a lot of problems. Also there was one city which was too well fortified to be captured. That was the city of Salem, the city once ruled by the Priest/king Melchizadech, one of the great saints of the past, to whom Abraham had given a tithe of the booty after one battle.