[1] Yahweh said to Joshua, Don`t be afraid, neither be you dismayed: take
all the people of war with you, and arise, go up to Ai; behold, I have
given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his
land; [2] You shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her
king: only the spoil of it, and the cattle of it, shall you take for a prey
to yourselves: set you an ambush for the city behind it. [3] So Joshua
arose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai: and Joshua chose out
thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them forth by night.
[4] He commanded them, saying, Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the
city, behind the city; don`t go very far from the city, but be you all
ready: [5] and I, and all the people who are with me, will approach to the
city. It shall happen, when they come out against us, as at the first, that
we will flee before them; [6] and they will come out after us, until we
have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, They flee before us,
as at the first: so we will flee before them; [7] and you shall rise up
from the ambush, and take possession of the city: for Yahweh your God will
deliver it into your hand. [8] It shall be, when you have seized on the
city, that you shall set the city on fire; according to the word of Yahweh
shall you do: behold, I have commanded you. [9] Joshua sent them forth; and
they went to set up the ambush, and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the
west side of Ai: but Joshua lodged that night among the people. [10] Joshua
arose up early in the morning, and mustered the people, and went up, he and
the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. [11] All the people, [even]
the [men of] war who were with him, went up, and drew near, and came before
the city, and encamped on the north side of Ai: now there was a valley
between him and Ai. [12] He took about five thousand men, and set them in
ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city. [13] So they
set the people, even all the host who was on the north of the city, and
their liers-in-wait who were on the west of the city; and Joshua went that
night into the midst of the valley. [14] It happened, when the king of Ai
saw it, that they hurried and rose up early, and the men of the city went
out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the time appointed,
before the Arabah; but he didn`t know that there was an ambush against him
behind the city. [15] Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten
before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness. [16] All the people who
were in the city were called together to pursue after them: and they
pursued after Joshua, and were drawn away from the city. [17] There was not
a man left in Ai or Beth-el, who didn`t go out after Israel: and they left
the city open, and pursued after Israel. [18] Yahweh said to Joshua,
Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai; for I will give it
into your hand. Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand
toward the city. [19] The ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they
ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand, and entered into the city,
and took it; and they hurried and set the city on fire. [20] When the men
of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the city
ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way:
and the people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers. [21]
When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that
the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and killed the men
of Ai. [22] The others came forth out of the city against them; so they
were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and
they struck them, so that they let none of them remain or escape. [23] The
king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua. [24] It happened,
when Israel had made an end of killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the
field, in the wilderness in which they pursued them, and they were all
fallen by the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all Israel
returned to Ai, and struck it with the edge of the sword. [25] All that
fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the
men of Ai. [26] For Joshua didn`t draw back his hand, with which he
stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the
inhabitants of Ai. [27] Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel
took for prey to themselves, according to the word of Yahweh which he
commanded Joshua. [28] So Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, even
a desolation, to this day. [29] The king of Ai he hanged on a tree until
the evening: and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they
took his body down from the tree, and cast it at the entrance of the gate
of the city, and raised thereon a great heap of stones, to this day. [30]
Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal,
[31] as Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded the children of Israel, as it
is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, on
which no man had lifted up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt
offerings to Yahweh, and sacrificed peace-offerings. [32] He wrote there on
the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote, in the presence of
the children of Israel. [33] All Israel, and their elders and officers, and
their judges, stood on this side of the ark and on that side before the
priests the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, as well
the sojourner as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and
half of them in front of Mount Ebal; as Moses the servant of Yahweh had
commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel. [34]
Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse,
according to all that is written in the book of the law. [35] There was not
a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua didn`t read before all the
assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners
who were among them.
