Joshua 8

¹ Then Yahweh said to Joshua, ‘Be fearless now, and be confident. Take all your fighting men with you, and march out against Ai. I will put into your power the king of Ai, his people, his town and his territory.

² You are to do with Ai and its king as you did with Jericho and its king. As regards booty, you may take the goods and the cattle no more. Take up a concealed position against the city, to the rear of it.

³ Joshua prepared to march against Ai with all the fighting men. He chose thirty thousand men from among the bravest and sent them out by night

⁴ after giving them these instructions, ‘Listen! You are to take up a concealed position against the town, but at the rear not far from the town, and mind you all keep alert!

⁵ I and all the people with me will go forward till we are near the town, and when the people of Ai come out against us as they did the first time, we will run before them.

⁶ Then they will follow close behind us, and we shall draw them away from the town, because they will think, “They are running from us as they did last time”.

⁷ Then you will rise from your concealed position and seize the town; Yahweh your God will deliver it into your hands.

⁸ When you have captured the town, set fire to it. These orders must be carried out. See to it! The orders come from me.’

⁹ Joshua sent them off, and they made their way to the concealed position, at a point between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai. Joshua spent the night among the people,

¹⁰ then, rising early next day, mustered the people and marched on Ai; he and the elders of Israel marched at the head of the people.

¹¹ All the warriors with him marched up towards the front of the town; they pitched camp north of Ai, with the ravine between Joshua and the town.

¹² He took some five thousand men and concealed these between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the town.

¹³ The people pitched their camp north of the town, while the concealed position lay to the west. Joshua spent that night in the valley itself.

¹⁴ When the king of Ai saw how things lay, he and all his people hurried out to engage Israel on the slope facing the Arabah; he did not know that an ambush had been laid against him to the rear of the town.

¹⁵ Joshua and all Israel with him let themselves be driven back, taking flight towards the wilderness.

¹⁶ All the people who were in the town followed them in loud pursuit, and in pursuing Joshua they left the town itself unguarded.

¹⁷ Not a man was left behind in Ai, all had gone out in pursuit of Israel; and in pursuing Israel they left the town undefended.

¹⁸ Then Yahweh said to Joshua, ‘Point the javelin in your hand at Ai; for I am about to put the town in your power’. Then Joshua pointed the javelin in his hand towards the town.

¹⁹ No sooner had he stretched out his hand than the men in ambush rose quickly from their position, ran forward and entered the town; they captured it and quickly set it on fire.

²⁰ When the men of Ai looked back, they saw smoke rising from the town into the sky. None of them had the chance to run one way rather than another, for the people fleeing towards the wilderness turned back on their pursuers.

²¹ For when Joshua and all Israel saw that the town had been seized by the men in ambush, and saw the smoke rising from the town into the sky, they turned round and attacked the men of Ai.

²² The others came out from the town to engage them, so that the men of Ai found themselves surrounded by Israelites, some on this side and some on that. These set about them till not one was alive and none left to flee;

²³ but the king of Ai was captured alive, and brought to Joshua.

²⁴ When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open ground and where they followed them into the wilderness, and when all to a man had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and slaughtered all its people.

²⁵ The number of those who fell that day, men and women together, was twelve thousand, all people of Ai.

²⁶ Joshua did not draw back the hand with which he had pointed the javelin until he had dealt with all the dwellers in Ai as with men under a ban.

²⁷ For booty, Israel took only the cattle and the spoils of the town, according to the order Yahweh had given to Joshua.

²⁸ Then Joshua burned Ai, making it a ruin for evermore, a desolate place even today.

²⁹ He hanged the king of Ai from a tree till evening; but at sunset Joshua ordered his body to be taken down from the tree. It was then thrown down at the entrance to the town gate and a great cairn was reared over it; and that is still there today.

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

³¹ as Moses, Yahweh’s servant, had ordered the sons of Israel, as is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, ‘an altar of undressed stones that no iron tool has ever worked’. On this they offered holocausts to Yahweh and offered communion sacrifices as well.

³² There Joshua wrote on the stones a copy of the Law which Moses had written for the Israelites.

³³ Then, on both sides of the ark, and facing the levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, all Israel with their elders and scribes and judges – strangers as well as Israelites born – all took their places, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of Yahweh had ordered originally for the blessing of the people of Israel.

³⁴ After this, Joshua read all the words of the Law – the blessing and the cursing – exactly as it stands written in the Book of the Law.

³⁵ Of every word laid down by Moses there was not one left unread by Joshua in the presence of the full assembly of Israel, with the women and children there, and the strangers living among the people.