< 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.
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 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.”
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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,
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 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.
Alors, levez-vous, quittez votre embuscade, et entrez dans la ville.
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.”
Faites comme je viens de dire: c'est l'ordre que je vous donne.
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.
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 Joshua rose up early in the morning, mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people 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 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.
Tous les gens de guerre marchèrent à sa suite, et arrivèrent devant la ville du côté de l'orient.
12 He took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.
Cependant, l'embuscade était à l'Occident de la ville.
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.
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.
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 all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness.
Josué et Israël le virent, et ils reculèrent devant lui.
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.
Et les hommes d'Haï poursuivirent les fils d'Israël, et ils s'éloignèrent de la ville.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 They captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua.
Toutefois, l'on prit vivant le roi d'Haï et on le mena devant Josué.
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.
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 All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the people of Ai.
Ce jour-là, douze mille âmes succombèrent, hommes et femmes; tous les habitants de Haï furent tués.
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.
27 Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city, according to the LORD’s word which he commanded Joshua.
Il ne resta que le butin, réservé aux fils d'Israël, selon l'ordre du Seigneur que leur avait transmit Josué.
28 So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day.
Et Josué acheva d'incendier la ville; il en fit un tombeau inhabitable à jamais, et resté tel jusqu'à nos jours.
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.
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 Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,
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.
32 He wrote there on the stones a copy of Moses’ law, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
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.
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.
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.

< Joshua 8 >