Defeat at Ai

7 But the children of Israel ^[a]committed a ^(A)trespass regarding the ^(B)accursed^[b] things, for ^(C)Achan the son of Carmi, the son of ^[c]Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things; so the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel.

² Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Aven, on the east side of Bethel, and spoke to them, saying, “Go up and spy out the country.” So the men went up and spied out Ai. ³ And they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people there, for the people of Ai are few.” ⁴ So about three thousand men went up there from the people, ^(D)but they fled before the men of Ai. ⁵ And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six men, for they chased them from before the gate as far as Shebarim, and struck them down on the descent; therefore ^(E)the^[d] hearts of the people melted and became like water.

⁶ Then Joshua ^(F)tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they ^(G)put dust on their heads. ⁷ And Joshua said, “Alas, Lord ^[e]God, ^(H)why have You brought this people over the Jordan at all—to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? Oh, that we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan! ⁸ O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turns its ^[f]back before its enemies? ⁹ For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear it, and surround us, and ^(I)cut off our name from the earth. Then ^(J)what will You do for Your great name?”

The Sin of Achan

¹⁰ So the Lord said to Joshua: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face? ¹¹ Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. ^(K)For they have even taken some of the ^[g]accursed things, and have both stolen and ^(L)deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff. ^12 (M)Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because ^(N)they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you. ¹³ Get up, ^(O)sanctify^[h] the people, and say, ^(P)‘Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, because thus says the Lord God of Israel: “There is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel; you cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you.” ¹⁴ In the morning therefore you shall be brought according to your tribes. And it shall be that the tribe which ^(Q)the Lord takes shall come according to families; and the family which the Lord takes shall come by households; and the household which the Lord takes shall come man by man. ^15 (R)Then it shall be that he who is taken with the accursed thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has ^(S)transgressed^[i] the covenant of the Lord, and because he ^(T)has done a disgraceful thing in Israel.’ ”

¹⁶ So Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel by their tribes, and the tribe of Judah was taken. ¹⁷ He brought the clan of Judah, and he took the family of the Zarhites; and he brought the family of the Zarhites man by man, and Zabdi was taken. ¹⁸ Then he brought his household man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, ^(U)was taken.

¹⁹ Now Joshua said to Achan, “My son, I beg you, ^(V)give glory to the Lord God of Israel, ^(W)and make confession to Him, and ^(X)tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.”

²⁰ And Achan answered Joshua and said, “Indeed ^(Y)I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done: ²¹ When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I ^[j]coveted them and took them. And there they are, hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it.”

²² So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and there it was, hidden in his tent, with the silver under it. ²³ And they took them from the midst of the tent, brought them to Joshua and to all the children of Israel, and laid them out before the Lord. ²⁴ Then Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and ^(Z)all that he had, and they brought them to ^(AA)the Valley of Achor. ²⁵ And Joshua said, ^(AB)“Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day.” ^(AC)So all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones.

²⁶ Then they ^(AD)raised over him a great heap of stones, still there to this day. So ^(AE)the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger. Therefore the name of that place has been called ^(AF)the Valley of ^[k]Achor to this day.

² And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, ^(A)according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. ³ For he rebuilt the ^[a]high places ^(B)which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; he raised up altars for Baal, and made a ^[b]wooden image, ^(C)as Ahab king of Israel had done; and he ^(D)worshiped all ^[c]the host of heaven and served them. ^4 (E)He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, ^(F)“In Jerusalem I will put My name.” ⁵ And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the ^(G)two courts of the house of the Lord. ^6 (H)Also he made his son pass through the fire, practiced ^(I)soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. ⁷ He even set a carved image of ^[d]Asherah that he had made, in the ^[e]house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, ^(J)“In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever; ^8 (K)and I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers—only if they are careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.” ⁹ But they paid no attention, and Manasseh ^(L)seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.

¹⁰ And the Lord spoke ^(M)by His servants the prophets, saying, ^11 (N)“Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations (^(O)he has acted more wickedly than all the ^(P)Amorites who were before him, and ^(Q)has also made Judah sin with his idols), ¹² therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both ^(R)his ears will tingle. ¹³ And I will stretch over Jerusalem ^(S)the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; ^(T)I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. ¹⁴ So I will forsake the ^(U)remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become victims of plunder to all their enemies, ¹⁵ because they have done evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.’ ”

^16 (V)Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin by which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁷ Now ^(W)the rest of the acts of ^(X)Manasseh—all that he did, and the sin that he committed—are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?