Joshua 8
1 And the Lord said to Joshua, Fear not, nor be timorous: take with you all the men of war, and arise, go up to Gai; behold, I have given into your hands the king of Gai, and his land.
Then Yahweh said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged [because of what happened at] Ai. Lead all of your soldiers and go there again. I will help you to defeat the king of Ai, his people, and his city, and [enable you to take] his land.
2 And you shall do to Gai, as you did to Jericho and its king; and you shall take to yourself the spoil of its cattle; set now for yourself an ambush for the city behind.
Your army will do to the people of Ai and their king like what you did to the people of Jericho and their king. But this time [I will permit you to] take all their possessions and keep them for yourselves. But first, tell some of your soldiers to [hide behind] the city [and] prepare to suddenly attack it.”
3 And Joshua and all the men of war rose to go up to Gai; and Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men, and he sent them away by night.
So Joshua led all his army toward Ai. He chose 30,000 of his best fighters/warriors and prepared to send them out during the night.
4 And he charged them, saying, Do you lie in ambush behind the city: do not go far from the city, and you shall all be ready.
He said to them, “Listen carefully. Some of you must hide on the other side of the city. Do not go far from the city. Just be ready [to attack].
5 Land I and all with me will draw near to the city: and it shall come to pass when the inhabitants of Gai shall come forth to meet us, as before, that we will flee from before them.
I and the men who are with me will march toward the city [in the morning]. The men in the city will come out to fight us, like they did before. Then we will turn around and start to run away from them.
6 And when they shall come out after us, we will draw them away from the city; and they will say, These men flee from before us, as also before.
They will think that we are running away from them like we did before. So they will chase us away from the city. While we are running away,
7 And you shall rise up out of the ambuscade, and go into the city.
[those of you who are hiding come out and] rush into the city and capture it. Yahweh your God will enable you to conquer it.
8 You shall do according to this word, behold! I have commanded you.
After you capture the city, burn it. Do what Yahweh has commanded us to do. Those are the orders I am giving to you.”
9 And Joshua sent them, and they went to lie in ambush; and they lay between Baethel and Gai, westward of Gai.
Then Joshua [prepared to] send some of them to [hide and] wait between Ai and Bethel, which was west of Ai. But Joshua stayed with his other soldiers that night.
10 And Joshua rose up early in the morning, and numbered the people; and he went up, he and the elders before the people to Gai.
Early the next morning, Joshua gathered his soldiers together. Then he and the other Israeli leaders led them up to Ai.
11 And all the men of war went up with him, and they went forward and came over against the city eastward.
They all set up their tents close to Ai, just to the north of the city, where all the people of the city could see them. There was a valley between them and the city.
12 And the ambuscade [was] on the west side of the city.
Then Joshua chose about 5,000 men and told them to go and hide just west of the city, between Ai and Bethel.
So those men did that. The main group of soldiers was north of the city, and the others were hiding west of the city. That night Joshua went down into the valley.
14 And it came to pass when the king of Gai saw [it], he hasted and went out to meet them direct to the battle, he and all the people [that were] with him: and he knew not that there was an ambuscade [formed] against him behind the city.
When the king of Ai saw the Israeli army, he and his soldiers got up early the next morning and quickly went out of the city to fight them. They went to a place east of the city, but they did not know that some Israeli soldiers were hiding behind the city.
15 And Joshua and Israel saw, and retreated from before them.
Joshua and the Israeli soldiers [who were with him] allowed the army of Ai to push them back. They ran toward the desert.
16 And they pursued after the children of Israel, and they themselves went to a distance from the city.
The men in Ai were ordered to chase after Joshua and his men. So they left the city and started to pursue the Israelis.
17 There was no one left in Gai who did not pursue after Israel; and they left the city open, and pursued after Israel.
All the men of Ai and the men of Bethel pursued the Israeli army. They did not leave even one man in Ai to defend it. The [gates of the] city were left wide open.
18 And the Lord said to Joshua, Stretch forth your hand with the spear that is in your hand toward the city, for I have delivered it into your hands; and the liers in wait shall rise up quickly out of their place.
Then Yahweh said to Joshua, “[Lift up] your spear [and] point it toward Ai, because I am going to enable your soldiers to capture it!” So Joshua pointed [his spear] toward Ai.
19 And Joshua stretched out his hand [and] his spear toward the city, and the ambuscade rose up quickly out of their place; and they came forth when he stretched out his hand; and they entered into the city, and took it; and they hasted and burnt the city with fire.
When the Israeli men who were hiding saw that, they rushed out from the places where they were hiding and ran into the city. They quickly captured it and set it on fire.
20 And when the inhabitants of Gai looked round behind them, then they saw the smoke going up out of the city to heaven, and they were no longer able to flee this way or that way.
When the men of Ai looked back, they saw smoke rising from their city. But they could not escape, because the Israeli troops stopped running away.
21 And Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambuscade had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city went up to heaven; and they turned and struck the men of Gai.
Joshua and his men saw that the men who had been hiding had captured the city and were burning it, and they saw the smoke rising. So they turned around and started to attack the men of Ai.
22 And these came forth out of the city to meet them; and they were in the midst of the army, some [being] on this side, and some on that; and they struck them until there was not left of them one who survived and escaped.
Meanwhile, the soldiers who had captured the city came out [and attacked them from the rear]. So the men of Ai were caught between the two groups of Israeli soldiers. None of the men of Ai escaped. The Israelis fought until they killed all of them. Only the king of Ai was still alive.
23 And they took the king of Gai alive, and brought him to Joshua.
Then they seized the king of Ai and brought him to Joshua.
24 And when the children of Israel had ceased slaying all that were in Gai, and in the fields, and in the mountain on the descent, from whence they pursued them [even] to the end, then Joshua returned to Gai, and struck it with the edge of the sword.
While they were fighting, the Israeli army pursued the men of Ai into the fields and into the desert, and killed all of them. Then they went to Ai and killed everyone who was there.
25 And they that fell in that day, men and women, were twelve thousand: [they killed] all the inhabitants of Gai.
They killed 12,000 men and women.
Joshua continued to point his spear [LIT] toward Ai, until all the people in Ai had been killed.
27 Beside the spoils that were in the city, all things which the children of Israel took as spoil for themselves according to the command of the Lord, as the Lord commanded Joshua.
The Israeli soldiers took for themselves the animals and the other things that had belonged to the people of Ai, just like Yahweh had told Joshua that they should do.
28 And Joshua burnt the city with fire: he made it an uninhabited heap for ever, [even] to this day.
Joshua and his soldiers burned Ai city and caused it to become a pile of ruins. It is still like that today.
29 And he hanged the king of Gai on a gallows; and he remained on the tree till evening: and when the sun went down, Joshua gave charge, and they took down his body from the tree, and cast it into a pit, and they set over him a heap of stones until this day.
Joshua hanged the king of Ai on a tree and left his corpse hanging there until the evening. At sunset Joshua told his men to take the king’s corpse down from the tree and to throw it on the ground at the city gate. [After they did that], they piled a lot of rocks on top of the corpse, and that pile of rocks is still there.
30 Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel in mount Gaebal,
Joshua [told his men to] build on Ebal Mountain an altar for Yahweh, the God [who is worshiped by] the Israeli people.
31 as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones, on which iron had not been lifted up; and he offered there whole burnt offerings to the Lord, and a peace-offering.
They built it just like Moses, the man who served God [well], had written previously in the laws [that God had given to him]. They made it from stones that had not been cut using iron tools. The Israelis then offered sacrifices to Yahweh that were burned completely on the altar. They also offered sacrifices to restore fellowship with Yahweh.
32 And Joshua wrote upon the stones a copy of the law, even the law of Moses, before the children of Israel.
As the Israelis watched, Joshua wrote on stones the laws that [Yahweh had given] to Moses previously.
33 And all Israel, and their elders, and their judges, and their scribes, passed on one side and on the other before the ark; and the priests and the Levites took up the ark of the covenant of the Lord; and the stranger and the native were there, who were half of them near mount Garizin, and half near mount Gaebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded at first, to bless the people.
The Israeli leaders, the officials, the judges, and other Israelis were there, standing nearby. Many people who were not Israelis were also there. Half of the people stood [on one side of the valley] below Ebal Mountain, and the other half of the people stood [on the other side of the valley] below Gerizim Mountain. The sacred chest was [in the valley] between the two groups. That was what Moses had previously commanded that the people should do when [Yahweh was about to] bless them.
34 And afterwards Joshua read accordingly all the words of this law, the blessings and the curses, according to all things written in the law of Moses.
Then Joshua read [to the people] all that [Moses] had written previously. That included what Yahweh had taught them and the ways [that he promised] to bless them [if they obeyed his commands], or to curse them [if they disobeyed them].
35 There was not a word of all that Moses charged Joshua, which Joshua read not in the ears of all the assembly of the children of Israel, the men, and the women, and the children, and the strangers that joined themselves to Israel.
All the Israelis gathered together [to listen]—the men, the women, and the children. The (foreigners/people who were not Israelis) who were living among them also listened, while Joshua read all the commands that Moses had written.
