Joshua 8
1 The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take the whole army with you, get up, and go up to Ai. Look, I have given the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land into your hand.
2 Do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. You may take its spoil and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush against the city, behind it.”
3 Joshua and the whole army set out to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty warriors and sent them out by night.
4 He commanded them, “Look, you are to lie in ambush behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready.
5 I and all the people with me will approach the city. When they come out against us, as they did the first time, we will flee before them.
6 They will come after us until we have drawn them away from the city, because they will say, ‘They are fleeing from us as they did the first time.’ So we will flee before them.
7 Then you will rise from your ambush and take possession of the city. The LORD your God will give it into your hand.
8 When you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do as the word of the LORD commands. Look, I have commanded you.”
9 Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush and stayed between Bethel and Ai, west of Ai. Joshua spent that night among the people.
10 Joshua rose early in the morning, mustered the people, and went up to Ai with the elders of Israel, leading the people.
11 The whole army with him went up, drew near, and came in front of the city. They camped north of Ai, with the valley between them and Ai.
12 He took about five thousand men and placed them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, west of the city.
13 The people set up the whole camp north of the city, with its rear guard west of the city. That night Joshua went into the middle of the valley.
14 When the king of Ai saw them, he and all his people, the men of the city, hurried out early to face Israel in battle at the appointed place, in front of the Arabah. But he did not know that an ambush was waiting for him behind the city.
15 Joshua and all Israel let themselves be beaten before them and fled along the road to the wilderness.
16 All the people in Ai were summoned to pursue them. They chased Joshua and were drawn away from the city.
17 Not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city open and pursued Israel.
18 The LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out toward Ai the spear in your hand, for I will give it into your hand.” Joshua stretched out toward the city the spear in his hand.
19 The ambush rose quickly from its place. They ran as soon as he stretched out his hand, entered the city, captured it, and immediately set it on fire.
20 The men of Ai looked back and saw the smoke of the city rising to the sky. They had no strength to flee in any direction, and the people who had been fleeing toward the wilderness turned against their pursuers.
21 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city and that its smoke was rising, they turned back and struck down the men of Ai.
22 The others came out of the city to meet them, so the men of Ai were surrounded by Israel, some on one side and some on the other. They struck them down until none were left alive or escaped.
23 They captured the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.
24 When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they had pursued them, and all had fallen by the sword to the last one, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down by the sword.
25 The total who fell that day, men and women, was twelve thousand, all the people of Ai.
26 Joshua did not withdraw the hand holding out the spear until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction.
27 Israel kept for themselves only the livestock and the spoil of that city, as the LORD had commanded Joshua.
28 Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap of ruins forever, a desolation to this day.
29 He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. At sunset Joshua gave the order, and they took his body down from the tree, threw it at the entrance of the city gate, and raised a great heap of stones over it, which is there to this day.
30 Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal.
31 Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded the Israelites to do this, as written in the Book of the Law of Moses: an altar of whole stones, untouched by iron. They offered burnt offerings to the LORD on it and sacrificed fellowship offerings.
32 There Joshua wrote on the stones a copy of the Law of Moses, which Moses had written in the presence of the Israelites.
33 All Israel, with its elders, officials, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark, facing the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD. Both the resident foreigner and the native-born were there. Half stood facing Mount Gerizim and half facing Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the LORD, had previously commanded, to bless the people of Israel.
34 Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the Law, the blessing and the curse, according to everything written in the Book of the Law.
35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read before the whole assembly of Israel, including the women, the children, and the resident foreigners living among them.
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