e that Moses
had taken of them who had never been weary of taking pains for them
no, not when he was dying, and for the sake of the public welfare, they
would prepare themselves, and readily perform what they had promised;
so he took fifty thousand of them who followed him, and he marched from
Abila to Jordan, sixty furlongs.

2. Now when he had pitched his camp, the spies came to him immediately,
well acquainted with the whole state of the Canaanites; for at first,
before they were at all discovered, they took a full view of the city
of Jericho without disturbance, and saw which parts of the walls were
strong, and which parts were otherwise, and indeed insecure, and which
of the gates were so weak as might afford an entrance to their army.
Now those that met them took no notice of them when they saw them,
and supposed they were only strangers, who used to be very curious in
observing everything in the city, and did not take them for enemies; but
at even they retired to a certain inn that was near to the wall, whither
they went to eat their supper; which supper when they had done, and were
considering how to get away, information was given to the king as he was
at supper, that there were some persons come from the Hebrews' camp to
view the city as spies, and that they were in the inn kept by Rahab,
and were very solicitous that they might not be discovered. So he sent
immediately some to them, and commanded to catch them, and bring them
to him, that he might examine them by torture, and learn what their
business was there. As soon as Rahab understood that these messengers
were coming, she hid the spies under stalks of flax, which were laid to
dry on the top of her house; and said to the messengers that were sent
by the king, that certain unknown strangers had supped with her a little
before sun-setting, and were gone away, who might easily be taken, if
they were any terror to the city, or likely to bring any danger to
the king. So these messengers being thus deluded by the woman, [2] and
suspecting no imposition, went their ways, without so much as searching
the inn; but they immediately pursued them along those roads which they
most probably supposed them to have gone, and those particularly which
led to the river, but could hear no tidings of them; so they left off
the pains of any further pursuit. But when the tumult was over, Rahab
brought the men down, and desired them as soon as they should have
obtained possessio