Josué 8
1 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.
Yahweh said to Joshua, “Do not fear; do not be discouraged. Take with you all the people of war. Go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.
2 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.
You will do to Ai and her king as you have done to Jericho and her king, except that you will take the plunder and the cattle for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.”
3 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.
So Joshua got up and took all the men of war up to Ai. Then Joshua chose thirty thousand men—strong, courageous men—and he sent them out at night.
4 Et il leur donna des ordres, disant: Placez-vous en embuscade derrière la ville. Ne vous en éloignez pas beaucoup, et tenez-vous prêts.
He commanded them, “Look, you will lie in ambush against the city, behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.
5 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.
I and all the men with me will approach the city, and when they come out to attack us, we will run away from them just as before.
6 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.
They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city. They will say, 'They are running away from us as they did the last time.' So we will run away from them.
7 Alors, levez-vous, quittez votre embuscade, et entrez dans la ville.
Then you come up out of your place of hiding, and you will capture the city. Yahweh your God will give it into your hand.
8 Faites comme je viens de dire: c'est l'ordre que je vous donne.
When you capture the city, you will set it on fire. You will do this when you obey the command given in the word of Yahweh. See, I have commanded you.”
9 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.
Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush, and they hid between Bethel and Ai to the west of Ai. But Joshua slept that night among the people.
10 Ensuite, Josué s'étant levé de grand matin, inspecta le peuple; et lui- même, avec les anciens, monta en Haï devant tout le peuple.
Joshua got up early in the morning and got his soldiers ready, Joshua and the elders of Israel, and they attacked the people of Ai.
11 Tous les gens de guerre marchèrent à sa suite, et arrivèrent devant la ville du côté de l'orient.
All the fighting men who were with him went up and approached the city. They came near the city and camped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between them and Ai.
12 Cependant, l'embuscade était à l'Occident de la ville.
He took about five thousand men and set them in ambush on the west side of the city between Bethel and Ai.
They positioned all the soldiers, the main army on the north side of the city, and the rear guard on the west side of the city. Joshua spent that night in the valley.
14 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.
It came about when the king of Ai saw it, he and his army got up early and rushed out to attack Israel at a certain place that was overlooking the Jordan River valley. He did not know that an ambush was waiting to attack from behind the city.
15 Josué et Israël le virent, et ils reculèrent devant lui.
Joshua and all Israel let themselves be defeated before them, and they fled toward the wilderness.
16 Et les hommes d'Haï poursuivirent les fils d'Israël, et ils s'éloignèrent de la ville.
All the people who were in the city were called together to go after them, and they went after Joshua and they were drawn away from the city.
17 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.
There was not a man left in Ai and Bethel who had not gone out to pursue Israel. They abandoned the city and left it open as they pursued Israel.
18 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;
Yahweh said to Joshua, “Point that spear in your hand toward Ai, for I will give Ai into your hand.” Joshua held out the spear that was in his hand toward the city.
19 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.
The soldiers hiding in ambush quickly rushed out of their place as he reached out with his hand. They ran and entered the city and captured it. They quickly set the city on fire.
20 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.
The men of Ai turned and looked back. They saw the smoke from the city rising into the sky, and they could not escape this way or that. For the Israelite soldiers who had fled into the wilderness now turned back to face those who were pursuing them.
21 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.
When Joshua and all Israel saw the ambush had captured the city with the smoke rising, they turned around and killed the men of Ai.
22 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.
The other soldiers of Israel, those who had gone in the city, came out to attack them. So the men of Ai were caught between the armies of Israel, some on this side and some on that side. Israel attacked the men of Ai; none of them survived or escaped.
23 Toutefois, l'on prit vivant le roi d'Haï et on le mena devant Josué.
They kept the king of Ai, whom they captured alive, and they brought him to Joshua.
24 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.
It came about when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field near the wilderness where they pursued them, and when all of them, to the very last one, had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai. They attacked it with the edge of the sword.
25 Ce jour-là, douze mille âmes succombèrent, hommes et femmes; tous les habitants de Haï furent tués.
All those who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand, all the people of Ai.
Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he had reached out while holding his spear, until he had completely destroyed all the people of Ai.
27 Il ne resta que le butin, réservé aux fils d'Israël, selon l'ordre du Seigneur que leur avait transmit Josué.
Israel took only the livestock and the plunder from the city for themselves, just as Yahweh had commanded Joshua.
28 Et Josué acheva d'incendier la ville; il en fit un tombeau inhabitable à jamais, et resté tel jusqu'à nos jours.
Joshua burned Ai and turned it into a heap of ruins forever. It is an abandoned place to this day.
29 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.
He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. When the sun was going down, Joshua gave the command and they took the king's body down from the tree and threw it in front of the city gates. There they set up a great heap of stones on top of it. That heap remains there to this day.
Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,
just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded the people of Israel, as it was written in the Book of the Law of Moses: “An altar from uncut stones, on which no one has wielded an iron tool.” He offered on the altar burnt offerings to Yahweh, and they sacrificed peace offerings.
There, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses.
All Israel, their elders, officers, and their judges stood on both sides of the ark before the priests and Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh—the foreigner as well as the native born—half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim and the other half stood in front of Mount Ebal. They blessed the people of Israel, just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded them at first.
Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law, the blessings and the curses, just as they had been written in the book of the law.
There was not one word from all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read in front of the assembly of Israel, including the women, the little children, and the foreigners who lived among them.
