Joshua 8

Revised Geneva Translation

8 After, the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the men of war with you and arise. Go up to Ai. Behold, I have given the king of Ai into your hand, and his people, and his city, and his land.

² “And you shall do to Ai and to its king as you did to Jericho and to its king. Only, you shall take its spoils and its cattle to you as plunder. You shall lie in wait against the city, on its back side.”

³ Then Joshua and all the men of war arose to go up against Ai. And Joshua chose out thirty thousand strong and valiant men and sent them away by night.

⁴ And he commanded them, saying, “Behold, you shall lie in wait against the city, on the back side of the city. Do not go very far from the city, but everyone be ready.

⁵ “And I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And when they shall come out against us, as they did the first time, then will we flee before them.

⁶ “For they will come out after us, till we have brought them out of the city. For they will say, ‘They flee before us, as the first time.’ So we will flee before them.

⁷ “Then you shall rise up from lying in wait and destroy the city. For the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.

⁸ “And when you have taken the city, you shall set it on fire. According to the Commandment of the LORD you shall do so. Behold, I have charged you.”

⁹ Joshua then sent them forth. And they went to lie in wait, and stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the West side of Ai. But Joshua lodged that night among the people.

¹⁰ And Joshua rose up early in the morning and numbered the people. And he and the elders of Israel went up before the people against Ai.

¹¹ Also all the men of war who were with him went up and drew near and came against the city, and pitched on the North side of Ai. And there was a valley between them and Ai.

¹² And he took about five thousand men and set them to lie in wait between Bethel and Ai, on the West side of the city.

¹³ And the people set all the army that was on the north side against the city, and those who lay in wait on the west, opposite the city. Joshua went the same night into the midst of the valley.

¹⁴ And when the king of Ai saw it, then the men of the city hurried and rose up early and went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the time appointed, in front of the plain. For he did not know that anyone lay in wait against him on the back side of the city.

¹⁵ Then Joshua and all Israel, as if beaten before them, fled by the way of the wilderness.

¹⁶ And all the people of the city were called together to pursue after them. And they pursued after Joshua, and were drawn away out of the city,

¹⁷ so that there was not a man left in Ai or in Bethel who did not go out after Israel. And they left the city open and pursued after Israel.

¹⁸ Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the spear that is in your hand toward Ai. For I will give it into your hand.” And Joshua stretched out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city.

¹⁹ And those who lay in wait arose quickly out of their place and ran, as soon as he had stretched out his hand. And they entered into the city and took it and hurried and set the city on fire.

²⁰ And the men of Ai looked behind them and saw it. For lo, the smoke of the city ascended up to Heaven. And they had no power to flee this way or that way. For the people who fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.

²¹ When Joshua and all Israel saw that those who lay in wait had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city mounted up, then they turned back and killed the men of Ai.

²² Also, the others came out of the city against them. So, they were in the midst of Israel, some on one side and the rest on the other side. And they killed them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.

²³ And they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

²⁴ And when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field (in the wilderness where they chased them), and when they had all fallen on the edge of the sword until they were consumed, all the Israelites returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.

²⁵ And all who fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, including all the men of Ai.

²⁶ For Joshua did not draw his hand which he had stretched out with the spear back again until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.

²⁷ Only the cattle and the spoils of this city did Israel take as plunder for themselves, according to the Word of the LORD which He Commanded Joshua.

²⁸ And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, a wilderness to this day.

²⁹ And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree, until the evening. And as soon as the Sun was down, Joshua commanded that they take his carcass down from the tree and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and lay a great heap of stones upon it, which remains to this day.

³⁰ Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD God of Israel on Mount Ebal—

³¹ as Moses, the servant of the LORD had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses—an Altar of whole stone, over which no man had lifted an iron. And they offered Burnt Offerings unto the LORD on it and sacrificed Peace Offerings.

³² Also, he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the Law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.

³³ And all Israel (and their elders and officers and their judges) stood on this side of the Ark and on that side, before the Priests of the Levites (who bore the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD), the stranger as well as he who is born in the country, half of them opposite Mount Gerizim and half of them opposite Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded before, so that they should bless the children of Israel.

³⁴ Then, afterward, he read all the Words of the Law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law.

³⁵ There was not a Word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the Congregation of Israel, the women as well as the children, and the stranger who was conversant among them.