Joshua 8

The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the men of war with you, rise, and go up to Ai. Look, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. Do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may take its plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush against the city behind it.” So Joshua and all the men of war rose to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty warriors and sent them out by night. He commanded them, “Look, you must lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready. I and all the people with me will approach the city. When they come out against us as before, we will flee before them. 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 before.’ So we will flee before them. Then you must rise from the ambush and seize the city, for the LORD your God will give it into your hand. When you capture the city, set the city on fire. Do as the LORD has said. See, I have commanded you.” Joshua sent them out, and they went to the ambush and took up their position between Bethel and Ai, west of Ai. Joshua spent that night among the people. Joshua rose early in the morning and mustered the people. He and the elders of Israel went up ahead of the people to Ai. All the men of war with him went up, approached, and came before the city. They camped north of Ai, with the valley between him and Ai. He took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, west of the city. They positioned the people, with the entire camp north of the city and its rear guard west of the city. That night Joshua went into the middle of the valley. When the king of Ai saw this, he and all his people, the men of the city, hurried and rose early. They went out to meet Israel in battle at the appointed time, facing the Arabah. But he did not know that an ambush lay against him behind the city. Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them and fled along the road to the wilderness. All the people in the city were called out to pursue them. They pursued Joshua and were drawn away from the city. Not a man remained in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city open and pursued Israel. The LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” So Joshua stretched out the javelin in his hand toward the city. The men in ambush rose quickly from their place and ran as soon as he stretched out his hand. They entered the city, captured it, and quickly set the city on fire. The men of Ai turned and saw the smoke of the city rising toward heaven. They had no power to flee this way or that, and the people fleeing toward the wilderness turned against their pursuers. When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that the smoke of the city was rising, they turned back and struck down the men of Ai. The others came out of the city against them, so they were caught in the middle of Israel, with some on one side and some on the other. They struck them down until neither survivor nor fugitive remained. But they captured the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua. When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open country, in the wilderness where they had pursued them, and all had fallen by the edge of the sword until they were wiped out, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. All who fell that day, men and women, numbered twelve thousand—all the people of Ai. Joshua did not draw back the hand he had stretched out with the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction. Israel took only the livestock and the plunder of that city for themselves, according to the word of the LORD that he had commanded Joshua. Joshua burned Ai and made it a mound forever, a desolation to this day. He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. At sunset Joshua gave the command, and they took his body down from the tree, threw it at the entrance of the city gate, and raised over him a great heap of stones, which remains to this day. 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 people of Israel, as written in the book of the law of Moses: an altar of whole stones on which no iron tool had been raised. They offered burnt offerings to the LORD on it and sacrificed peace offerings. There, on the stones, he wrote a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the sight of the people of Israel. All Israel, with its elders, officers, and judges, stood on either side of the ark, facing the Levitical priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the LORD, resident foreigners and native-born alike. Half stood facing Mount Gerizim and half facing Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the LORD, had first commanded, to bless the people of Israel. Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to everything written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before the entire assembly of Israel, including the women, the little ones, and the resident foreigners who lived among them.

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