Joshua 8

1Yahweh said to Joshua, "Do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the warriors with you, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land."

2Do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king; only take its spoil and livestock as plunder for yourselves, and set an ambush for the city behind it.

3Joshua arose with all the fighting men to march on Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand warriors, champions of the army, and sent them out by night.

4He commanded them, "See, you lie in ambush against the city from behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but be all of you ready."

5I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. When they come out to meet us as before, we will flee before them.

6They will come out after us until we draw them from the city, for they will say, “They are fleeing before us, as at first,” and we will flee before them.

7You shall rise from the ambush and possess the city, for Yahweh your God will give it into your hand.

8When you seize the city, set it ablaze with fire; carry this out according to Yahweh's word. See, I have charged you.

9Joshua sent them to the ambush, and they went and stayed between Bethel and Ai to the west of Ai, but he spent that night in the midst of the people.

10Joshua got up early in the morning, counted the people, and he and the elders of Israel went up ahead of the people to Ai.

11All the people, the warriors who were with him, went up, approached, and came opposite the city, encamping north of Ai with a valley between them and Ai.

12He took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.

13They stationed the people, all the army north of the city and their rear west of the city; Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley.

14When the king of Ai saw it, they hurried and rose early, and the men of the city went out to meet Israel for battle—he and all his people—at the appointed time before the plain, but he did not know that an ambush lay for him behind the city.

15Joshua and all Israel let themselves be beaten before them and fled by the wilderness way.

16All the people in Ai were mustered to chase after them, and they pursued Joshua until they were drawn away from the city.

17No man remained in Ai and Bethel who did not go out after Israel; they forsook the open city and pursued Israel.

18Yahweh said to Joshua, "Stretch out the spear in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand." Joshua stretched out the spear in his hand toward the city.

19The ambushers rose quickly from their place and rushed forward as soon as he stretched out his hand; they entered the city, captured it, and hurried to set the city ablaze.

20The men of Ai turned behind them and saw the smoke of the city rising to heaven, but no strength remained in them to flee this way or that; the people fleeing to the wilderness wheeled around on their pursuers.

21Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had seized the city and that smoke was rising from the city, so they turned back and struck the men of Ai.

22These came out from the city against them, so they were trapped amid Israel, some on this side and some on that, and they struck them down, leaving no survivor or fugitive.

23They seized the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

24When Israel finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them fell by the edge of the sword until they were completely consumed, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.

25It came about that all who fell that day, from man to woman, were twelve thousand—all the men of Ai.

26Joshua did not withdraw his hand with which he had stretched out the spear until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction.

27Israel took only the livestock and the plunder of that city for themselves, according to the word of Yahweh that he commanded Joshua.

28Joshua burned Ai and made it an eternal heap, a desolation to this day.

29Joshua hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening, and when the sun set he commanded them to lower his carcass from the tree, hurl it to the entrance of the city gate, and raise a great heap of stones over it that lasts to this day.

30Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, God of Israel, on Mount Ebal.

31Just as Moses, Yahweh's servant, commanded the sons of Israel—as written in the book of the law of Moses—he built an altar of uncut stones, upon which no iron had been raised, offered burnt offerings to Yahweh on it, and sacrificed peace offerings.

32There he wrote on the stones a copy of Moses' law, which he had written before the Israelites.

33All Israel—their elders, officers, and judges—stood on one side of the ark and on the other before the Levite priests carrying Yahweh's covenant ark, both stranger and native. Half of them faced Mount Gerizim, the other half Mount Ebal, just as Moses, Yahweh's servant, had commanded initially to bless the people of Israel.

34After that he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to everything written in the book of the law.

35There was no word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, the little ones, and the sojourners living among them.