Chapter 8
1 The LORD said to Joshua , "Don’t be afraid , and don’t be dismayed . Take all the warriors with you , and arise , go up to Ai . Behold , I have given into your hand the king of Ai , with his people , his city , and his land.
2 You shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king , except you shall take its goods and its livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it ."
3 So Joshua arose , with all the warriors , to go up to Ai . Joshua chose thirty thousand men , the mighty men of valour , and sent them out by night .
4 He commanded them , saying, " Behold , you shall lie in ambush against the city , behind the city . Don’t go very far from the city , but all of you be ready .
5 I and all the people who are with me will approach the city . It shall happen , when they come out against us , as at the first , that we will flee before them .
6 They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city ; for they will say, ‘ They flee before us , like the first time .’ So we will flee before them ,
7 and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city ; for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand .
8 It shall be , when you have seized the city , that you shall set the city on fire . You shall do this according to the LORD ’s word . Behold , I have commanded you ."
9 Joshua sent them out ; and they went to set up the ambush , and stayed between Bethel and Ai on the west side of Ai ; but Joshua stayed amongst the people that night .
10 Joshua rose up early in the morning , mustered the people , and went up , he and the elders of Israel , before the people to Ai .
11 All the people , even the men of war who were with him , went up and came near , and came before the city and encamped on the north side of Ai . Now there was a valley between him and Ai .
12 He took about five thousand men , and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai , on the west side of the city .
13 So they set the people , even all the army who was on the north of the city , and their ambush on the west of the city ; and Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley .
14 When the king of Ai saw it , they hurried and rose up early , and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle , he and all his people , at the time appointed , before the Arabah ; but he didn’t know that there was an ambush against him behind the city .
15 Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them , and fled by the way of the wilderness .
16 All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them . They pursued Joshua , and were drawn away from the city .
17 There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who didn’t go out after Israel . They left the city open , and pursued Israel .
18 The LORD said to Joshua , " Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand towards Ai , for I will give it into your hand ." Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand towards the city .
19 The ambush arose quickly out of their place , and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand and entered into the city and took it . They hurried and set the city on fire .
20 When the men of Ai looked behind them , they saw , and behold , the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven , and they had no power to flee this way or that way . The people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers .
21 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city , and that the smoke of the city ascended , then they turned back and killed the men of Ai .
22 The others came out of the city against them , so they were in the middle of Israel , some on this side , and some on that side . They struck them , so that they let none of them remain or escape .
23 They captured the king of Ai alive , and brought him to Joshua .
24 When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field , in the wilderness in which they pursued them , and they had all 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 .
25 All that fell that day , both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the people of Ai .
26 For Joshua didn’t draw back his hand , with which he stretched out the javelin , until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai .
27 Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city , according to the LORD ’s word which he commanded Joshua .
28 So Joshua burnt Ai and made it a heap forever , even a desolation , to this day .
29 He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the evening . At sundown , Joshua commanded , and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city , and raised a great heap of stones on it that remains to this day .
30 Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD , the God of Israel , on Mount Ebal ,
31 as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel , as it is written in the book of the law of Moses : an altar of uncut stones, on which no one had lifted up any iron . They offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings .
32 He wrote there on the stones a copy of Moses ’ law , which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel .
33 All Israel , with their elders , officers , and judges , stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests , who carried the ark of the LORD ’s covenant , the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim , and half of them in front of Mount Ebal , as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first , that they should bless the people of Israel .
34 Afterward he read all the words of the law , the blessing and the curse , according to all that is written in the book of the law .
35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua didn’t read before all the assembly of Israel , with the women, the little ones , and the foreigners who were amongst them .