Js 8:1Then Jehovah said to Joshua, Do not be afraid or dismayed. Take all the people of war with you, and rise and go up to Ai. See, I have given the king of Ai and his people and his city and his land into your hand.
Js 8:2And you shall do to Ai and to its king as you did to Jericho and to its king; except its spoil and its cattle you shall take for your plunder. Set an ambush for the city behind it.
Js 8:3So Joshua rose up with 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.
Js 8:4And he commanded them, saying, See, you shall lie in ambush for the city behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready.
Js 8:5And I and all the people who are with me will draw near to the city. Then when they come forth to meet us, as it was the first time, we will flee before them.
Js 8:6And they will come out after us until we have drawn them out from the city, for they will say, They are fleeing before us as they did the first time. Thus we will flee before them.
Js 8:7Then you shall rise up from the ambush and take possession of the city, for Jehovah your God will give it into your hand.
Js 8:8And when you capture the city, you shall set the city on fire. You shall do according to the word of Jehovah. See, I have commanded you.
Js 8:9Then Joshua sent them forth; and they went to the place of ambush, and they stayed between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai. And Joshua spent that night among the people.
Js 8:10And Joshua rose early in the morning and mustered the people; and he and the elders of Israel went up before the people to Ai.
Js 8:11And all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near and came before the city. And they camped to the north of Ai, so that the valley was between them and Ai.
Js 8:12Now he had taken about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.
Js 8:13So they set the people, the whole camp, which was north of the city, and the rearguard to the west of the city. And Joshua went into the valley that night.
Js 8:14Now when the king of Ai saw this, the men of the city hurried and rose up early and went to meet Israel in battle, he and all his people, at the assigned place, facing the Arabah; for he did not know that there was an ambush set for him behind the city.
Js 8:15And Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them, and they fled by the way of the wilderness.
Js 8:16Then all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them; and they pursued after Joshua and thus were drawn out of the city.
Js 8:17And not a man was left in Ai or in Bethel who did not go forth after Israel, but they abandoned the city, leaving it open, and pursued after Israel.
Js 8:18Then Jehovah said to Joshua, Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand. And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
Js 8:19And the ambush rose up quickly from their place and ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand, and they entered the city and captured it; and they hurried and set the city on fire.
Js 8:20And when the men of Ai turned to see behind them, they looked, and there it was — the smoke of the city going up to heaven; and they had no way to flee this way or that way when the people who had fled into the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.
Js 8:21When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that the smoke of the city was rising, they turned and slew the men of Ai.
Js 8:22And the others came out from the city to meet them, so that they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side and some on that side. And they struck them, so that no one was left to survive or escape.
Js 8:23But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.
Js 8:24And when Israel had finished slaying 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 were consumed, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.
Js 8:25And all those who fell that day, both of men and of women, were twelve thousand, all the people of Ai.
Js 8:26And Joshua did not withdraw his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
Js 8:27Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for themselves as plunder, according to the word of Jehovah, which He commanded Joshua.
Js 8:28So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever; it is a desolation to this day.
Js 8:29And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening time. And when the sun set, Joshua commanded, and they took his corpse down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate, and they erected over him a great heap of stones, which is there to this day.
Js 8:30Then Joshua built an altar to Jehovah the God of Israel on Mount Ebal,
Js 8:31As Moses the servant of Jehovah had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones upon which no one had lifted up an iron tool. And they offered upon it burnt offerings to Jehovah, and they sacrificed peace offerings.
Js 8:32And there he wrote upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written in the presence of the children of Israel.
Js 8:33And all Israel and their elders and their officers and their judges stood on either side of the Ark in front of the Levitical priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah, both sojourner and native alike: half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of Jehovah had first commanded, to bless the people of Israel.
Js 8:34And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that was written in the book of the law.
Js 8:35There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read before all the congregation of Israel and the women and the little ones and the sojourners who went among them.
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