Joshua 8

The LORD Sends Israel Back to Ai

1The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take with you all the people of war, arise, and go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. 2You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that its plunder and livestock you may take for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it.” 3So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty warriors and sent them out by night. 4He commanded them, saying, “See, you are to lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready. 5I and all the people who are with me will draw near to the city. When they come out against us as at the first, we will flee before them. 6They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are fleeing before us as at the first.’ So we will flee before them. 7Then you shall rise from the ambush and take possession of the city, and the LORD your God will give it into your hand. 8When you have captured the city, set the city on fire. According to the word of the LORD you shall do. See, I have commanded you.”

Israel Sets the Ambush

9Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush and stayed between Bethel and Ai, west of Ai. But Joshua spent that night among the people. 10Joshua rose early in the morning, mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. 11All the people of war who were with him went up, drew near, and came before the city. They camped north of Ai, with the valley between them and Ai. 12He took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, west of the city. 13So the people set the entire camp that was north of the city and its rear guard west of the city. Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley.

Ai Is Captured

14When the king of Ai saw it, the men of the city hurried and rose early and went out toward Israel for battle, he and all his people, at the appointed place before the Arabah. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city. 15Joshua and all Israel allowed themselves to be struck before them and fled by the way of the wilderness. 16All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them. They pursued Joshua and were drawn away from the city. 17Not a man remained in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city open and pursued Israel. 18Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” So Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city. 19The ambush rose quickly from its place. They ran as soon as he stretched out his hand, entered the city, captured it, and hurried to set the city on fire. 20The men of Ai turned back and looked, and behold, the smoke of the city was going up toward heaven. They had no place to flee this way or that, for the people who had fled toward the wilderness turned back against the pursuers. 21When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city and that the smoke of the city went up, they turned back and struck the men of Ai. 22The others came out from the city against them, so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side and some on that side. Israel struck them until no survivor or fugitive was left. 23But they captured the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

The King of Ai Is Hanged

24When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they 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. 25All who fell that day, men and women, were twelve thousand, all the people of Ai. 26Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction. 27Only the livestock and the plunder of that city Israel took for themselves, according to the word of the LORD that he had commanded Joshua. 28Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent mound, a desolation to this day. 29He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. At sunset Joshua commanded, and they took his corpse down from the tree, threw it at the entrance of the city gate, and raised over it a great heap of stones that remains to this day.

The Covenant Is Read at Mount Ebal

30Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, 31as Moses, servant of the LORD, had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the instruction of Moses: an altar of uncut stones upon which no iron tool had been wielded. They offered burnt offerings upon it to the LORD and sacrificed offerings of well-being. 32There, on the stones, Joshua wrote a copy of the instruction of Moses that he had written before the children of Israel. 33All Israel, their elders, officers, and judges stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, the resident alien as well as the native-born. Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses, servant of the LORD, had commanded at first, to bless the people of Israel. 34Afterward Joshua read all the words of the instruction, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the instruction. 35There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, including the women, the little children, and the resident aliens who lived among them.