The Ambush of Ai
1Yahweh said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take all the fighting men with you and go up to Ai. See, I have given the king of Ai into your hand, along with his people, his city, and his land. 2You are to do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may take its plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.” 3So Joshua and all the fighting men set out to attack Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand of his best fighting men and sent them out by night, 4with these orders: “Listen — you are to lie in ambush behind the city. Do not go too far from it, and all of you stay ready. 5I and all the people with me will approach the city, and when they come out against us as before, 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, just as before.’ So we will flee before them, 7and then you will rise up from the ambush and take possession of the city, for Yahweh your God will give it into your hand. 8As soon as you have captured the city, set it on fire. Do this in obedience to the word of Yahweh. See — I have commanded you.” 9Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush and waited between Bethel and Ai, west of Ai. But Joshua spent that night among the people. 10Joshua rose early the next morning, mustered the people, and went up toward Ai with the elders of Israel at the head of the people. 11All the fighting men with him went up, approached, and came in front of the city, camping 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 took their positions — the main camp to the north of the city, and the rear guard to the west of it. That night Joshua went into the middle of the valley. 14When the king of Ai saw this, he and his people hurried and rose early and went out to meet Israel in battle, at the appointed place facing the Arabah. But he did not know that an ambush was set against him behind the city. 15Joshua and all Israel let themselves be beaten back before them and fled toward the wilderness. 16All the people in the city were called out to pursue them, and as they pursued Joshua, they were drawn away from the city. 17Not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city wide open and went in pursuit of Israel. 18Yahweh said to Joshua, “Point the javelin in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” So Joshua pointed the javelin in his hand toward the city. 19As soon as he stretched out his hand, the men in ambush rose quickly from their place and rushed in. They entered the city, captured it, and hurried to set it on fire. 20When the men of Ai looked back, they saw the smoke of the city rising to the sky, and they had no way to flee in any direction, for the people who had been fleeing toward the wilderness turned back against their pursuers. 21When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that smoke was rising from it, they turned back and struck down the men of Ai. 22The others came out of the city to meet them, so the men of Ai were caught in the middle, Israelites on both sides. Israel struck them down until no one was left alive or able to escape. 23But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua. 24When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open country and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and all of them had fallen by the sword until they were wiped out, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the sword. 25The total who fell that day, men and women together, was twelve thousand — all the people of Ai. 26Joshua did not draw back the hand with which he had stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction. 27Only the livestock and the plunder of that city did Israel take for themselves, according to the word Yahweh had commanded Joshua. 28Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent ruin, a desolation to this day. 29He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening, and at sunset Joshua commanded that they take his body down from the tree. They threw it down at the entrance of the city gate and raised over it a great heap of stones, which remains to this day.
The Altar on Mount Ebal
30Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, 31just as Moses, the servant of Yahweh, had commanded the Israelites, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses — an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered burnt offerings to Yahweh and sacrificed peace offerings. 32There, in the presence of the Israelites, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses. 33All Israel, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark, facing the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh — the foreigner along with the native-born — half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses, the servant of Yahweh, had commanded, in order to bless the people of Israel first. 34After this, he read aloud all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to everything written in the book of the law. 35There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua failed to read before the whole assembly of Israel, including the women, the children, and the foreigners who lived among them.
