The Conquest of Ai
And the LORD said to Joshua: “Do not fear, and do not be dismayed. Take with you all the people of war, and rise, go up to Ai. See — I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land.
And you shall do to Ai and to its king as you did to Jericho and to its king; only its spoil and its livestock you may plunder for yourselves. Set for yourself an ambush against the city, behind it.”
And Joshua rose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai. And Joshua chose thirty thousand men, mighty men of valor, and sent them out by night,
and commanded them, saying: “See, you are to lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready.
And I and all the people who are with me will come near to the city. And it shall be, when they come out to meet us as at the first, we will flee before them.
And they will come out after us, until we have drawn them away from the city — for they will say, ‘They are fleeing before us as at the first’ — and we will flee before them.
Then you shall rise from the ambush and take possession of the city; and the LORD your God will give it into your hand.
And it shall be, when you seize the city, you shall set the city on fire. According to the word of the LORD you shall do. See, I have commanded you.”
And Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush, and stayed between Bethel and Ai, west of Ai. And Joshua lodged that night in the midst of the people.
And Joshua rose early in the morning and mustered the people; and he went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.
And all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near and came opposite the city; and they camped north of Ai, with the valley between him and Ai.
And he took about five thousand men and set them as an ambush between Bethel and Ai, west of the city.
And the people set all the camp that was north of the city, and its rear guard west of the city; and Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley.
And it was, when the king of Ai saw it, that the men of the city hurried and rose early and went out to meet Israel for battle — he and all his people — at the appointed place before the Arabah. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.
And Joshua and all Israel let themselves be beaten before them, and they fled by the way of the wilderness.
And all the people who were in Ai were called together to pursue after them; and they pursued after Joshua, and were drawn away from the city.
And not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. And they left the city open, and pursued after Israel.
And the LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for into your hand I will give it.” And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
And the ambush rose quickly from its place, and they ran as soon as he stretched out his hand, and they came into the city and captured it; and they hurried and set the city on fire.
And the men of Ai turned behind them and looked — and look, the smoke of the city was going up to the heavens, and there was in them no strength to flee this way or that; and the people fleeing to the wilderness turned back on the pursuer.
And Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city, and that the smoke of the city was going up; and they turned back and struck down the men of Ai.
And the others came out from the city to meet them, so that they were in the middle of Israel, some on this side and some on that side; and they struck them down until no survivor or fugitive was left to them.
But the king of Ai they seized alive, and they brought him near to Joshua.
And it was, when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they had pursued them, and all of them had fallen by the edge of the sword until they came to an end, that all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.
And all who fell that day, from man to woman, were twelve thousand — all the people of Ai.
And Joshua did not draw back his hand that he had stretched out with the javelin until he had devoted to destruction all the inhabitants of Ai.
Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel plundered for themselves, according to the word of the LORD that he had commanded Joshua.
And Joshua burned Ai and made it a mound forever, a desolation, to this day.
And the king of Ai he hanged on the tree until the time of evening; and at the going down of the sun Joshua gave command, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised over it a great heap of stones, to this day.
Joshua Renews the Covenant
Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,
as Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the instruction of Moses: an altar of whole stones, over which no iron had been swung. And they offered on it burnt offerings to the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings.
And he wrote there on the stones a copy of the instruction of Moses, which he wrote before the sons of Israel.
And all Israel, and its elders and officers and its judges, were standing on this side and on that side of the ark, in front of the priests, the Levites, carrying the ark of the covenant of the LORD — sojourner as well as native — half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded, to bless the people Israel at the first.
And afterward he read all the words of the instruction, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the instruction.
There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read in front of all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourner who walked in their midst.