Bible in Basic English
"So Joshua made stone knives and gave the children of Israel circumcision at Gibeath-ha-araloth."
— Joshua 5:3, Bible in Basic English
“And Joshua made him knives of flint, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. ”
Now when the news came to all the kings of the Amorites on the west side of Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites living by the sea, how the Lord had made the waters of Jordan dry before the children of Israel, till they had gone across, their hearts became like water, and there was no more spirit in them, because of the children of Israel.
At that time the Lord said to Joshua, Make yourself stone knives and give the children of Israel circumcision a second time.
So Joshua made stone knives and gave the children of Israel circumcision at Gibeath-ha-araloth.
And this is the reason why Joshua did so: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the fighting-men, had been overtaken by death in the waste land on the way, after they came out of Egypt.
All the people who came out had undergone circumcision; but all the people whose birth had taken place in the waste land on their journey from Egypt had not.
For the children of Israel were wandering in the waste land for forty years, till all the nation, that is, all the fighting-men, who had come out of Egypt, were dead, because they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord: to whom the Lord said, with an oath, that he would not let them see the land which the Lord had given his word to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.