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.
Et le Seigneur dit à Josué: N'aie point de crainte, point de faiblesse; prends avec toi tous les gens de guerre, et monte en Haï: voilà que j'ai livré à tes mains le roi d'Haï et son territoire.
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.”
Tu feras à Haï ce que tu as fait à Jéricho et à son roi; mais tu prendras pour toi tout le bétail; dresse d'abord une embuscade derrière la ville.
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.
Josué se leva donc et avec lui tous les gens de guerre, afin de marcher sur Haï. Or, Josué choisit trente mille hommes dans la force de l'âge, et il les fit partir pendant la nuit.
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].
Et il leur donna des ordres, disant: Placez-vous en embuscade derrière la ville. Ne vous en éloignez pas beaucoup, et tenez-vous prêts.
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.
Moi, cependant, et tous ceux qui m'accompagnent, nous nous approcherons des remparts, et il adviendra que quand les habitants d'Haï sortiront à notre rencontre, comme ils l'ont fait récemment, nous fuirons devant eux.
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,
Et lorsqu'ils se seront lancés à notre poursuite, nous les attirerons loin de la ville, et ils diront: Ces gens-là fuient devant nous de la même manière que précédemment.
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.
Alors, levez-vous, quittez votre embuscade, et entrez dans la ville.
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.”
Faites comme je viens de dire: c'est l'ordre que je vous donne.
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.
Et Josué les congédia; ils gagnèrent le lieu de l'embuscade, et ils se placèrent entre Béthel et Haï, à l'occident de cette ville.
10 Early the next morning, Joshua gathered his soldiers together. Then he and the other Israeli leaders led them up to Ai.
Ensuite, Josué s'étant levé de grand matin, inspecta le peuple; et lui- même, avec les anciens, monta en Haï devant tout le peuple.
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.
Tous les gens de guerre marchèrent à sa suite, et arrivèrent devant la ville du côté de l'orient.
12 Then Joshua chose about 5,000 men and told them to go and hide just west of the city, between Ai and Bethel.
Cependant, l'embuscade était à l'Occident de la ville.
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.
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.
Et dès que le roi d'Haï aperçut Josué et les siens, il se hâta de sortir directement à leur rencontre pour les combattre; car il ne savait pas qu'une embuscade était dressée de l'autre côté de la ville.
15 Joshua and the Israeli soldiers [who were with him] allowed the army of Ai to push them back. They ran toward the desert.
Josué et Israël le virent, et ils reculèrent devant lui.
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.
Et les hommes d'Haï poursuivirent les fils d'Israël, et ils s'éloignèrent de la ville.
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.
Nul n'était resté dans Haï; tous poursuivaient les fils d'Israël; ils avaient laissé la ville ouverte, et ils s'attachaient aux pas d'Israël.
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.
Alors, le Seigneur dit à Josué: Etends la main et le javelot, que tu tiens, vers la ville; car je te l'ai livrée. Et les hommes de l'embuscade vont quitter promptement leur place. Et Josué étendit la main et le javelot vers la ville;
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.
A ce moment les hommes de l'embuscade sortirent promptement de leur place; ils partirent, ils entrèrent dans la ville, la prirent et se hâtèrent de la livrer aux flammes.
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.
Et les hommes d'Haï, ayant regardé ce qui se passait derrière eux, virent la fumée qui s'élevait de la ville jusqu'au ciel, et ils n'eurent plus de refuge ni d'une part ni de l'autre.
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.
Dès que Josué et tout le peuple eurent reconnu que les hommes de l'embuscade avaient pris la ville, et que la fumée de l'incendie s'élevait jusqu'au ciel, ils firent volte-face et frappèrent les hommes d'Hai.
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.
Et l'embuscade sortit de la ville à la rencontre de ceux-ci, qui se trouvèrent enveloppés par tous les guerriers du camp, les uns devant eux, les autres sur leurs derrières; ils furent accablés au point que nul ne put fuir; nul ne survécut.
23 Then they seized the king of Ai and brought him to Joshua.
Toutefois, l'on prit vivant le roi d'Haï et on le mena devant Josué.
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.
Quand les fils d'Israël eurent achevé de tuer tous ceux de Haï qui étaient en plaine, ou qu'ils avaient trouvés sur les pentes de la colline, car ils les poursuivirent tant qu'il en resta, Josué retourna sur la ville et la passa au fil de l'épée.
25 They killed 12,000 men and women.
Ce jour-là, douze mille âmes succombèrent, hommes et femmes; tous les habitants de Haï furent tués.
26 Joshua continued to point his spear [LIT] toward Ai, until all the people in Ai had been killed.
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.
Il ne resta que le butin, réservé aux fils d'Israël, selon l'ordre du Seigneur que leur avait transmit Josué.
28 Joshua and his soldiers burned Ai city and caused it to become a pile of ruins. It is still like that today.
Et Josué acheva d'incendier la ville; il en fit un tombeau inhabitable à jamais, et resté tel jusqu'à nos jours.
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.
Et il suspendit à une croix le roi d'Haï, qu'il y laissa jusqu'au soir. Au coucher du soleil, Josué fit détacher son cadavre, que l'on jeta dans une fosse; puis, on mit sur lui un monceau de pierres qui subsiste encore de nos jours.
30 Joshua [told his men to] build on Ebal Mountain an altar for Yahweh, the God [who is worshiped by] the Israeli people.
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.
32 As the Israelis watched, Joshua wrote on stones the laws that [Yahweh had given] to Moses previously.
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.
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].
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.
