Forty years after the Red Sea, with Moses dead and Joshua now leading, Israel reached the Jordan opposite Jericho at the spring flood. The Lord told Joshua to instruct the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant to step into the river. 'As soon as the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the LORD, the lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be stopped from flowing.'
The priests stepped in; the waters above stood up in a heap as far as Adam, the city beside Zarethan; the waters below flowed off into the Dead Sea. All Israel passed over on dry ground. The Lord commanded twelve men, one from each tribe, to take twelve stones from the bed of the river and pile them at the night's encampment at Gilgal as a memorial. The crossing — at the same Jordan where Naaman would later be cured, where Elijah would part the waters and ascend, where John the Baptist would baptise Christ — is the bookend of the Exodus.