Joshua 8
1 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.
Yahweh said to Joshua, “Do not fear; do not be discouraged. Take with you all the people of war. Go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.
2 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.”
You will do to Ai and her king as you have done to Jericho and her king, except that you will take the plunder and the cattle for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.”
3 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.
So Joshua got up and took all the men of war up to Ai. Then Joshua chose thirty thousand men—strong, courageous men—and he sent them out at night.
4 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].
He commanded them, “Look, you will lie in ambush against the city, behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.
5 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.
I and all the men with me will approach the city, and when they come out to attack us, we will run away from them just as before.
6 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,
They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city. They will say, 'They are running away from us as they did the last time.' So we will run away from them.
7 [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.
Then you come up out of your place of hiding, and you will capture the city. Yahweh your God will give it into your hand.
8 After you capture the city, burn it. Do what Yahweh has commanded us to do. Those are the orders I am giving to you.”
When you capture the city, you will set it on fire. You will do this when you obey the command given in the word of Yahweh. See, I have commanded you.”
9 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.
Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush, and they hid between Bethel and Ai to the west of Ai. But Joshua slept that night among the people.
10 Early the next morning, Joshua gathered his soldiers together. Then he and the other Israeli leaders led them up to Ai.
Joshua got up early in the morning and got his soldiers ready, Joshua and the elders of Israel, and they attacked the people of Ai.
11 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.
All the fighting men who were with him went up and approached the city. They came near the city and camped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between them and Ai.
12 Then Joshua chose about 5,000 men and told them to go and hide just west of the city, between Ai and Bethel.
He took about five thousand men and set them in ambush on the west side of the city between Bethel and Ai.
13 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.
They positioned all the soldiers, the main army on the north side of the city, and the rear guard on the west side of the city. Joshua spent that night in the valley.
14 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.
It came about when the king of Ai saw it, he and his army got up early and rushed out to attack Israel at a certain place that was overlooking the Jordan River valley. He did not know that an ambush was waiting to attack from behind the city.
15 Joshua and the Israeli soldiers [who were with him] allowed the army of Ai to push them back. They ran toward the desert.
Joshua and all Israel let themselves be defeated before them, and they fled toward the wilderness.
16 The men in Ai were ordered to chase after Joshua and his men. So they left the city and started to pursue the Israelis.
All the people who were in the city were called together to go after them, and they went after Joshua and they were drawn away from the city.
17 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.
There was not a man left in Ai and Bethel who had not gone out to pursue Israel. They abandoned the city and left it open as they pursued Israel.
18 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.
Yahweh said to Joshua, “Point that spear in your hand toward Ai, for I will give Ai into your hand.” Joshua held out the spear that was in his hand toward the city.
19 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.
The soldiers hiding in ambush quickly rushed out of their place as he reached out with his hand. They ran and entered the city and captured it. They quickly set the city on fire.
20 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.
The men of Ai turned and looked back. They saw the smoke from the city rising into the sky, and they could not escape this way or that. For the Israelite soldiers who had fled into the wilderness now turned back to face those who were pursuing them.
21 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.
When Joshua and all Israel saw the ambush had captured the city with the smoke rising, they turned around and killed the men of Ai.
22 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.
The other soldiers of Israel, those who had gone in the city, came out to attack them. So the men of Ai were caught between the armies of Israel, some on this side and some on that side. Israel attacked the men of Ai; none of them survived or escaped.
23 Then they seized the king of Ai and brought him to Joshua.
They kept the king of Ai, whom they captured alive, and they brought him to Joshua.
24 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.
It came about when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field near the wilderness where they pursued them, and when all of them, to the very last one, had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai. They attacked it with the edge of the sword.
25 They killed 12,000 men and women.
All those who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand, all the people of Ai.
26 Joshua continued to point his spear [LIT] toward Ai, until all the people in Ai had been killed.
Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he had reached out while holding his spear, until he had completely destroyed all the people of Ai.
27 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.
Israel took only the livestock and the plunder from the city for themselves, just as Yahweh had commanded Joshua.
28 Joshua and his soldiers burned Ai city and caused it to become a pile of ruins. It is still like that today.
Joshua burned Ai and turned it into a heap of ruins forever. It is an abandoned place to this day.
29 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.
He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. When the sun was going down, Joshua gave the command and they took the king's body down from the tree and threw it in front of the city gates. There they set up a great heap of stones on top of it. That heap remains there to this day.
30 Joshua [told his men to] build on Ebal Mountain an altar for Yahweh, the God [who is worshiped by] the Israeli people.
Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,
31 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.
just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded the people of Israel, as it was written in the Book of the Law of Moses: “An altar from uncut stones, on which no one has wielded an iron tool.” He offered on the altar burnt offerings to Yahweh, and they sacrificed peace offerings.
32 As the Israelis watched, Joshua wrote on stones the laws that [Yahweh had given] to Moses previously.
There, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses.
33 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.
All Israel, their elders, officers, and their judges stood on both sides of the ark before the priests and Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh—the foreigner as well as the native born—half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim and the other half stood in front of Mount Ebal. They blessed the people of Israel, just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded them at first.
34 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].
Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law, the blessings and the curses, just as they had been written in the book of the law.
35 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.
There was not one word from all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read in front of the assembly of Israel, including the women, the little children, and the foreigners who lived among them.
