Joshua 8
1 The LORD said to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid, and don’t be dismayed. Take all the warriors with you, and arise, go up to Ai. Behold, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, with his people, his city, 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 You shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king, except you shall take its goods and its livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it.”
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 So Joshua arose, with all the warriors, to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them out 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 He commanded them, saying, “Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Don’t go very far from the city, but all of you 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 I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. It shall happen, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee 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 They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, ‘They flee before us, like the first time.’ So we will flee before them,
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 from the ambush, and take possession of the city; for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.
[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 It shall be, when you have seized the city, that you shall set the city on fire. You shall do this according to the LORD’s 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 Joshua sent them out; and they went to set up the ambush, and stayed between Bethel and Ai on the west side of Ai; but Joshua stayed among the people that night.
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 Joshua rose up early in the morning, mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai.
Early the next morning, Joshua gathered his soldiers together. Then he and the other Israeli leaders led them up to Ai.
11 All the people, even the men of war who were with him, went up and came near, and came before the city and encamped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between him and Ai.
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 He took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, 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.
13 So they set the people, even all the army who was on the north of the city, and their ambush on the west of the city; and Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley.
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 it, they hurried and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the time appointed, before the Arabah; but he didn’t know that there was an ambush 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 Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness.
Joshua and the Israeli soldiers [who were with him] allowed the army of Ai to push them back. They ran toward the desert.
16 All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them. They pursued Joshua, and were drawn away 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 not a man left in Ai or Bethel who didn’t go out after Israel. They left the city open, and pursued 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 The LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
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 The ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand and entered into the city and took it. They hurried and set the city on 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 When the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way. The people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers.
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 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned back and killed the men of Ai.
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 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.
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 They captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua.
Then they seized the king of Ai and brought him to Joshua.
24 When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness in which they pursued them, and they had all 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.
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 All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the people of Ai.
They killed 12,000 men and women.
26 For Joshua didn’t draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
Joshua continued to point his spear [LIT] toward Ai, until all the people in Ai had been killed.
27 Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city, according to the LORD’s word which he 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 So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, 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 He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the evening. At sundown, Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised a great heap of stones on it that remains to 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, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,
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 book of the law of Moses: an altar of uncut stones, on which no one had lifted up any iron. They offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings.
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 He wrote there on the stones a copy of Moses’ law, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
As the Israelis watched, Joshua wrote on stones the laws that [Yahweh had given] to Moses previously.
33 All Israel, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests, who carried the ark of the LORD’s covenant, the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.
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 Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
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 commanded which Joshua didn’t read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the foreigners who were among them.
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.
