Chapter 8
1
And the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take with you all the people of war and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai and his people and his city and his land."
2
And you shall do to Ai and to its king just as you did to Jericho and to its king; only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as spoil for yourselves. Set an ambush for yourself for the city behind it.
3
And Joshua arose and all the people of war to go up to Ai, and Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty men of might, and he sent them at night.
4
And they commanded them, saying, "See, you lie in ambush for the city from behind the city; do not go too far from the city, and you all shall be ready."
5
I and all the people who are with me will draw near to the city, and it will be that when they come out to meet us just as at the first, we will flee before them.
6
And they will go out after us until we have lured them from the city, for they will say, "They are fleeing before us as at the first," and we will flee before them.
7
And you shall arise from the ambush and shall dispossess the city, and the LORD your God will give it into your hand.
8
And it will be, when you seize the city, that you shall set the city ablaze with fire according to the word of the LORD. You shall do it. See, I have commanded you.
9
And Joshua sent them, and they went to the ambush and sat between Beth-el and Ai, from the east of Ai, and Joshua spent the night in the midst of the people.
10
Joshua arose early in the morning and mustered the people, and he went up—he and the elders of Israel—before the people to Ai.
11
All the warriors with him went up, approached, and came opposite the city. They encamped north of Ai, with the valley between it and Ai.
12
He took about five thousand men and put them as an ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.
13
And the people set the whole camp which was north of the city, and their rear guard was toward the city, and Joshua went that night in the midst of the valley.
14
When the king of Ai saw it, the men of the city hurried out early to meet Israel in battle—he and all his people—at the appointed time before the Arabah. He did not know that an ambush lay in wait for him behind the city.
15
And they made cultic contact with Joshua and all Israel before their faces, and they fled miracle-way of the wilderness.
16
All the people in Ai rushed out to pursue them. They pursued Joshua and were drawn away from the city.
17
No man remained in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel, and they left the city open and pursued Israel.
18
The LORD said to Joshua, "Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for into your hand I will give it." Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
19
The ambushers quickly arose from their place. They ran when he stretched out his hand, came to the city, captured it, and hurried to set the city on fire.
20
And the men of Ai turned after them and saw, and behold, smoke of the city ascended toward the heavens, and there was not in them hands to flee here and there, and the people fleeing to the wilderness turned against the pursuers.
21
Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city and that the smoke of the city had gone up, and they turned and struck the men of Ai.
22
And these came out from the city to meet them, and they were to Israel in the midst—these from this side and these from that side—and they struck them until there was no survivor or escapee left for him.
23
And they seized the king of Ai alive, and they brought him near to Joshua.
24
It was when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness in which they pursued them, and all of them had fallen by the edge of the sword until they were completely destroyed. And all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.
25
And all the fallen ones on that day—from man to woman—were twelve thousand, all the men of Ai.
26
Joshua did not withdraw his hand, which he had stretched out with the spear, until he had devoted to destruction all the inhabitants of Ai.
27
Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel pillaged for themselves according to the word of the LORD, which he commanded Joshua.
28
And Joshua burned Ai and made it a mound of eternal desolation until this day.
29
And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the time of the evening. And when the sun went down, Joshua commanded it, and they took down his body from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate and raised over it a great pile of stones until this day.