New Revised Standard Version
They answered Joshua, “Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the LORD your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land before you; so we were in great fear for our lives because of you, and did this thing.

Contemporary English Version
The Gibeonites answered, "The LORD your God told his servant Moses that you were to kill everyone who lives here and take their land for yourselves. We were afraid you would kill us, and so we tricked you into making a peace treaty. But we agreed to be your servants,

New American Bible
They answered Joshua, “Your servants were fully informed of how the LORD, your God, commanded Moses his servant that you be given the entire land and that all its inhabitants be destroyed before you. Since, therefore, at your advance, we were in great fear for our lives, we acted as we did.

Douay-Rheims Bible
They answered: It was told us, thy servants, that the Lord thy God had promised his servant Moses, to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants thereof. Therefore we feared exceedingly and provided for our lives, compelled by the dread we had of you, and we took this counsel.

They answered: It was told us, thy servants, that the Lord thy God had promised his servant Moses, to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants thereof. Therefore we feared exceedingly and provided for our lives, compelled by the dread we had of you, and we took this counsel.

the Lord

Exodus 23:31-33 And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea to the sea of the Palestines, and from the desert to the river: I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hands, and will drive them out from before you. . . .

Numbers 33:51,52,55,56 Command the children of Israel, and say to them: When you shall have passed over the Jordan, entering into the land of Chanaan, . . .

Deuteronomy 7:1,2,23,24 When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, which thou art going in to possess, and shall have destroyed many nations before thee, the Hethite, and the Gergezite, and the Amorrhite, and the Chanaanite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite, seven nations much more numerous than thou art, and stronger than thou: . . .

Deuteronomy 20:15-17 So shalt thou do to all cities that are at a great distance from thee, and are not of these cities which thou shalt receive in possession. . . .

we were sore

Exodus 15:14-16 Nations rose up, and were angry: sorrows took hold on the inhabitants of Philisthiim. . . .

Job 2:4 And Satan answered, and said: Skin for skin; and all that a man hath, he will give for his life:

Matthew 10:28 And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.