Old/New Testament
7 But there was sin among the Israelis. God’s command to destroy everything except that which was reserved for the Lord’s treasury was disobeyed. For Achan (the son of Carmi, grandson of Zabdi, and great-grandson of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah) took some loot for himself, and the Lord was very angry with the entire nation of Israel because of this.
2 Soon after Jericho’s defeat, Joshua sent some of his men to spy on the city of Ai, east of Bethel.
3 Upon their return they told Joshua, “It’s a small city and it won’t take more than two or three thousand of us to destroy it; there’s no point in all of us going there.”
4 So approximately three thousand soldiers were sent—and they were soundly defeated. 5 About thirty-six of the Israelis were killed during the attack, and many others died while being chased by the men of Ai as far as the quarries. The Israeli army was paralyzed with fear at this turn of events. 6 Joshua and the elders of Israel tore their clothing and lay prostrate before the Ark of the Lord until evening, with dust on their heads.
7 Joshua cried out to the Lord, “O Jehovah, why have you brought us over the Jordan River if you are going to let the Amorites kill us? Why weren’t we content with what we had? Why didn’t we stay on the other side? 8 O Lord, what am I to do now that Israel has fled from her enemies! 9 For when the Canaanites and the other nearby nations hear about it, they will surround us and attack us and wipe us out. And then what will happen to the honor of your great name?”
10-11 But the Lord said to Joshua, “Get up off your face! Israel has sinned and disobeyed my commandment and has taken loot when I said it was not to be taken; and they have not only taken it, they have lied about it and have hidden it among their belongings. 12 That is why the people of Israel are being defeated. That is why your men are running from their enemies—for they are cursed.[a] I will not stay with you any longer unless you completely rid yourselves of this sin.
13 “Get up! Tell the people, ‘Each of you must undergo purification rites in preparation for tomorrow, for the Lord your God of Israel says that someone has stolen from him, and you cannot defeat your enemies until you deal with this sin. 14 In the morning you must come by tribes, and the Lord will point out the tribe to which the guilty man belongs. And that tribe must come by its clans and the Lord will point out the guilty clan; and the clan must come by its families, and then each member of the guilty family must come one by one. 15 And the one who has stolen that which belongs to the Lord shall be burned with fire, along with everything he has, for he has violated the covenant of the Lord and has brought calamity upon all of Israel.’”
16 So, early the next morning, Joshua brought the tribes of Israel before the Lord, and the tribe of Judah was indicated. 17 Then he brought the clans of Judah, and the clan of Zerah was singled out. Then the families of that clan were brought before the Lord and the family of Zabdi was indicated. 18 Zabdi’s family was brought man by man, and his grandson Achan was found to be the guilty one.
19 Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the God of Israel and make your confession. Tell me what you have done.”
20 Achan replied, “I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. 21 For I saw a beautiful robe imported from Babylon, and some silver worth $200, and a bar of gold worth $500. I wanted them so much that I took them, and they are hidden in the ground beneath my tent, with the silver buried deeper than the rest.”
22 So Joshua sent some men to search for the loot. They ran to the tent and found the stolen goods hidden there just as Achan had said, with the silver buried beneath the rest. 23 They brought it all to Joshua and laid it on the ground in front of him. 24 Then Joshua and all the Israelites took Achan, the silver, the robe, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, donkeys, sheep, his tent, and everything he had, and brought them to the valley of Achor.
25 Then Joshua said to Achan, “Why have you brought calamity upon us? The Lord will now bring calamity upon you.”
And the men of Israel stoned them to death and burned their bodies, 26 and piled a great heap of stones upon them. The stones are still there to this day, and even today that place is called “The Valley of Calamity.” And so the fierce anger of the Lord was ended.
8 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid or discouraged; take the entire army and go to Ai, for it is now yours to conquer. I have given the king of Ai and all of his people to you. 2 You shall do to them as you did to Jericho and her king; but this time you may keep the loot and the cattle for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.”
3-4 Before the main army left for Ai, Joshua sent thirty thousand of his bravest troops to hide in ambush close behind the city, alert for action.
5 “This is the plan,” he explained to them. “When our main army attacks, the men of Ai will come out to fight as they did before, and we will run away. 6 We will let them chase us until they have all left the city; for they will say, ‘The Israelis are running away again just as they did before!’ 7 Then you will jump up from your ambush and enter the city, for the Lord will give it to you. 8 Set the city on fire, as the Lord has commanded. You now have your instructions.”
9 So they left that night and lay in ambush between Bethel and the west side of Ai; but Joshua and the rest of the army remained in the camp at Jericho. 10 Early the next morning Joshua roused his men and started toward Ai, accompanied by the elders of Israel, 11-13 and stopped at the edge of a valley north of the city. That night Joshua sent another five thousand men[b] to join the troops in ambush on the west side of the city. He himself spent the night in the valley.
14 The king of Ai, seeing the Israelis across the valley, went out early the next morning and attacked at the plain of the Arabah. But of course he didn’t realize that there was an ambush behind the city. 15 Joshua and the Israeli army fled across the wilderness as though badly beaten, 16 and all the soldiers in the city were called out to chase after them; so the city was left defenseless; 17 there was not a soldier left in Ai or Bethel, and the city gates were left wide open.
18 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Point your spear toward Ai, for I will give you the city.” Joshua did. 19 And when the men in ambush saw his signal, they jumped up and poured into the city and set it on fire. 20-21 When the men of Ai looked behind them, smoke from the city was filling the sky, and they had nowhere to go. When Joshua and the troops who were with him saw the smoke, they knew that their men who had been in ambush were inside the city, so they turned upon their pursuers and began killing them. 22 Then the Israelis who were inside the city came out and began destroying the enemy from the rear. So the men of Ai were caught in a trap and all of them died; not one man survived or escaped, 23 except for the king of Ai, who was captured and brought to Joshua.
24 When the army of Israel had finished slaughtering all the men outside the city, they went back and finished off everyone left inside. 25 So the entire population of Ai, twelve thousand in all, was wiped out that day. 26 For Joshua kept his spear pointed toward Ai until the last person was dead. 27 Only the cattle and the loot were not destroyed, for the armies of Israel kept these for themselves. (The Lord had told Joshua they could.) 28 So Ai became a desolate mound of refuse, as it still is today.
29 Joshua hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening, but as the sun was going down, he took down the body and threw it in front of the city gate. There he piled a great heap of stones over it, which can still be seen.
30 Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel at Mount Ebal, 31 as Moses had commanded[c] in the book of his laws: “Make me an altar of boulders that have neither been broken nor carved,” the Lord had said concerning Mount Ebal. Then the priests offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings to the Lord on the altar. 32 And as the people of Israel watched, Joshua carved upon the stones of the altar each of the Ten Commandments.[d]
33 Then all the people of Israel—including the elders, officers, judges, and the foreigners living among them—divided into two groups, half of them standing at the foot of Mount Gerizim and half at the foot of Mount Ebal. Between them stood the priests with the Ark, ready to pronounce their blessing. (This was all done in accordance with the instructions given long before by Moses.) 34 Joshua then read to them all of the statements of blessing and curses that Moses had written in the book of God’s laws. 35 Every commandment Moses had ever given was read before the entire assembly, including the women and children and the foreigners who lived among the Israelis.
9 1-2 When the kings of the surrounding area heard what had happened to Jericho, they quickly combined their armies to fight for their lives against Joshua and the Israelis. These were the kings of the nations west of the Jordan River, along the shores of the Mediterranean as far north as the Lebanon mountains—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
3-5 But when the people of Gibeon heard what had happened to Jericho and Ai, they resorted to trickery to save themselves. They sent ambassadors to Joshua wearing worn-out clothing, as though from a long journey, with patched shoes, weatherworn saddlebags on their donkeys, old, patched wineskins and dry, moldy bread. 6 When they arrived at the camp of Israel at Gilgal, they told Joshua and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land to ask for a peace treaty with you.”
7 The Israelis replied to these Hivites, “How do we know you don’t live nearby? For if you do, we cannot make a treaty with you.”
8 They replied, “We will be your slaves.”
“But who are you?” Joshua demanded. “Where do you come from?”
9 And they told him, “We are from a very distant country; we have heard of the might of the Lord your God and of all that he did in Egypt, 10 and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites—Sihon, king of Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan. 11 So our elders and our people instructed us, ‘Prepare for a long journey; go to the people of Israel and declare our nation to be their servants, and ask for peace.’ 12 This bread was hot from the ovens when we left, but now as you see, it is dry and moldy; 13 these wineskins were new, but now they are old and cracked; our clothing and shoes have become worn out from our long, hard trip.”
14-15 Joshua and the other leaders finally believed them. They did not bother to ask the Lord but went ahead and signed a peace treaty. And the leaders of Israel ratified the agreement with a binding oath.
16 Three days later the facts came out—these men were close neighbors. 17 The Israeli army set out at once to investigate and reached their cities in three days. (The names of the cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim.) 18 But the cities were not harmed because of the vow which the leaders of Israel had made before the Lord God. The people of Israel were angry with their leaders because of the peace treaty.
19 But the leaders replied, “We have sworn before the Lord God of Israel that we will not touch them, and we won’t. 20 We must let them live, for if we break our oath, the wrath of Jehovah will be upon us.”
21 So they became servants of the Israelis, chopping their wood and carrying their water.
22 Joshua summoned their leaders and demanded, “Why have you lied to us by saying that you lived in a distant land, when you were actually living right here among us? 23 Now a curse shall be upon you! From this moment you must always furnish us with servants to chop wood and carry water for the service of our God.”
24 They replied, “We did it because we were told that Jehovah instructed his disciple Moses to conquer this entire land and destroy all the people living in it. So we feared for our lives because of you; that is why we have done it. 25 But now we are in your hands; you may do with us as you wish.”
26 So Joshua would not allow the people of Israel to kill them, 27 but they became woodchoppers and water-carriers for the people of Israel and for the altar of the Lord—wherever it would be built (for the Lord hadn’t yet told them where to build it). This arrangement is still in force at the time of this writing.
21 Meanwhile the crowds outside were waiting for Zacharias to appear and wondered why he was taking so long. 22 When he finally came out, he couldn’t speak to them, and they realized from his gestures that he must have seen a vision in the Temple. 23 He stayed on at the Temple for the remaining days of his Temple duties and then returned home. 24 Soon afterwards Elizabeth his wife became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months.
25 “How kind the Lord is,” she exclaimed, “to take away my disgrace of having no children!”
26 The following month God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin, Mary, engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.
28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Congratulations, favored lady! The Lord is with you!”[a]
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.
30 “Don’t be frightened, Mary,” the angel told her, “for God has decided to wonderfully bless you! 31 Very soon now, you will become pregnant and have a baby boy, and you are to name him ‘Jesus.’ 32 He shall be very great and shall be called the Son of God. And the Lord God shall give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he shall reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom shall never end!”
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can I have a baby? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of God shall overshadow you; so the baby born to you will be utterly holy—the Son of God. 36 Furthermore, six months ago your Aunt[b] Elizabeth—‘the barren one,’ they called her—became pregnant in her old age! 37 For every promise from God shall surely come true.”
38 Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to do whatever he wants. May everything you said come true.” And then the angel disappeared.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.