 1 The Lord said to Joshua, Do not fear nor be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you and go to Ai. See, I have given the king of Ai and his people and his city and his land to you. 2 You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its cattle you shall take for a prize for yourselves. Lay an ambush for the city behind it. 3 So Joshua and all the people of war arose to go up against Ai. And Joshua chose out 30,000 men, mighty warriors, and sent them away by night. 4 He commanded them saying, Behold, you will be an ambush against the city, behind the city. You shall not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready. 5 I, and all the people with me, shall go toward the city. When they come out against us, as at the first, we will flee before them, 6 for they will come out after us, until we have drawn them out of the city. For they will say, They flee before us, even as at the first. And we will flee before them. 7 Then you shall rise up from the ambush and seize on the city. For the Lord your God will deliver it to you. 8 When you have taken the city, you shall set the city on fire, according to the command of the Lord you shall do. See, I have commanded you. 9 Joshua sent them out and they went to lie in ambush and stayed between Bethel and Ai on the west side of Ai. But Joshua stayed that night among the people. 10 Joshua arose early in the morning and called the people. He and the elders of Israel went in the sight of the people of Ai. 11 All the people of war went with him and drew near. They came before the city and pitched on the north side of Ai, and a valley was between them and Ai. 12 He took about 5,000 men and set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai on the west side of the city. 13 When they had set the people, all the army that was on the north of the city, and its rear ambush on the west of the city, Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley. 14 When the king of Ai saw, they hurried and rose early and the men of the city went to do battle against Israel, he and all his people, at the time appointed, before the plain. But he did not know that there were some lying in ambush against him behind the city. 15 Joshua and all Israel acted as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness. 16 All the people in Ai were called together to run after them. They ran after Joshua and were drawn away from the city. 17 There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who did not go after Israel. They left the city open and ran after Israel. 18 The Lord said to Joshua, Stretch out the spear in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it to you. So Joshua stretched out the spear in his hand toward the city. 19 The ambush arose quickly out of their place and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand. They entered into the city and took it and hurried to set the city on fire. 20 The men of Ai looked behind them and saw the smoke of the city go up into the sky and they had no ability+ to flee this way or that way. Then the people who fled to the wilderness turned back against the pursuers. 21 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that the smoke of the city rose, they killed the men of Ai. 22 Then 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 took the king of Ai, and brought him alive to Joshua. 24 When Israel stopped killing all those who lived in Ai, in the field and in the wilderness where they chased them, and when they had all fallen on the edge of the sword until they were gone, all the Israelites returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. 25 All who fell that day, both of men and women, were 12,000, all the men of Ai. 26 For Joshua did not draw back his hand that he stretched out the spear until he had utterly destroyed all the people of Ai. 27 Only, Israel took the cattle and the spoil of that city for a prize for themselves, according to the Word of the Lord that He commanded Joshua. 28 Joshua burned Ai, and made it a heap forever, a ruin to this day. 29 He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. And as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his body down from the tree and throw it down at the entrance to the gate of the city, and raise on it a great heap of stones, to this day. 30 Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal. 31 Moses the servant of the Lord commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, to make an altar of whole stones over which no man has lifted any iron. They offered burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings on it. 32 He wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses that he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel. 33 All Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on this side of the ark, and on that side, before the priests the Levites who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, the stranger as well as the homeborn among them, half of them over against Mount Gerizim, and half of them over against Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded before that they should bless all the people of Israel. 34 Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the congregation of Israel, with the women and the little children, and the strangers who walked among them.
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