When Joshua first comes to approach Jericho he sees a man with a drawn sword standing in front of him. Joshua asks him if he’s on the side of Israel or their enemies and the man says “Neither, I’m the commander of the armies of the Lord.” I think it’s interesting the distinction made by this guy, I assume he’s an angel or something. He’s basically telling Joshua “Look, I’m not a part of your army, I’m not here to serve your side, but as long as you play your cards right, you can be part of my side.”
The army marches around Jericho six times in six days blowing trumpets just like they’re told to do. On the seventh day they march around the city seven times and when they blow their trumpets the walls collapse and the Israelite army is able to slaughter everyone inside. God says that all the plunder of this city belongs to Him so they have to round all of it up and put it in the Lord’s treasury.
Later, Joshua sends a small force of a couple thousand men to conquer a little city called Ai, but they’re routed and come running back defeated. Joshua comes to God to ask why this happened and finds out that some guy kept a bunch of God’s treasure.
Once they find this guy, Achan, and stone him and his entire family to death, God takes them back to Ai and hands the city over to the Israelites.
Before all this though, Joshua makes camp just inside Canaan and has everybody circumcised. They have to stay there and heal for couple days before moving on, but fortunately the rumors about that trick with the Jordan river are spreading quickly and everyone is afraid to attack the camp during this time because of the Israelite God. Apparently they haven’t been keeping everybody circumcised while they wandered the desert, which is surprising considering what a big deal it is to God for everyone to be circumcised. He almost killed Moses over it that one time.
God decrees that Jericho is never to be rebuilt, which it actually has been. Jericho is there today, but it’s in Palestine so I guess you could say that it’s cursed because I’m sure it sucks to live there.
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