1 Yahweh said to Joshua, Don’t be afraid, neither be 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 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 foreigner 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 foreigners who were among them.
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