In Joshua 9, Joshua and Israel’s leaders are tempted into sin through their overconfidence. Not only do the Gibeonites deceive them—in language that is written to reflect the deception of the serpent in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3—but the Israelites also find themselves overconfident about their own spiritual discernment abilities.

How should we understand this passage? How badly did the Israelites mess things up in their mission? How should we interpret the Gibeonites? And what is God doing through all of this?