The Conquest of Ai

1And YHWH said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed. Take with you all the people of war and arise, go up to Ai. Behold, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land. 2And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and to its king; only its spoil and its cattle you⁺ shall take as plunder for yourselves. Set up to you an ambush for the city behind it.”

3And Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up against Ai, and Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty men of valor, and sent them away by night. 4And he commanded them, saying, “Behold, you⁺ shall lie in ambush against the city, from behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you⁺ be ready. 5And I and all the people who are with me will approach unto the city. And it shall come to pass, when they come out against us as at the first, that we shall flee before their faces. 6And they will come out after us until we have drawn them from the city, for they will say, ‘They are fleeing before our faces as at the first.’ And we will flee before their faces, 7and you⁺ shall rise from the ambush and seize the city, for YHWH your⁺ God will deliver it into your⁺ hands. 8And it shall come to pass, when you⁺ have taken the city, that you⁺ shall set the city on fire. According to the commandment of YHWH you⁺ shall do. See, I have commanded you⁺.”

9And Joshua sent them out, and they went to the ambush, and stayed between Bethel and between Ai, on the west side of Ai. And Joshua lodged that night among the people.

10And Joshua rose up early in the morning, and mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the face of the people to Ai. 11And all the people of war who were with him went up, and drew near, and they came before the city and camped on the north side of Ai, and the valley was between them and between Ai.

12And he took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and between Ai, on the west side of the city. And they had set the people, all the army that was on the north of the city, and its rear guard on the west of the city, and Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley.

14And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hurried and rose early and went out—the men of the city—against Israel into battle, he and all his people, at an appointed place before the face of the plain. And he did not know that an ambush was against him behind the city. 15And Joshua and all Israel were struck before their faces, and they fled by the way of the wilderness. 16And all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them, and they pursued after Joshua, and they were drawn away from the city. 17And there was left not a man in Ai and Bethel who did not go out after Israel. And they left the city open and pursued after Israel.

18And YHWH said to Joshua, “Stretch out the battle lance† that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” And Joshua stretched out the battle lance that was in his hand toward the city. 19And the ambush arose quickly out of its place, and they ran at the stretching out of his hand, and they entered the city and took it, and they hurried and burned the city with the fire.

20And the men of Ai looked behind them, and they saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended to the heavens. And there was not power in them to flee here or there, and the people who had fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers. 21And Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, and they turned back and struck down the men of Ai. 22And these came out of the city to meet them, and they were in the midst of Israel, these from this side and these from this side, and they struck them down until he left to him no survivor or escapee. 23And the king of Ai they took alive, and they brought him to Joshua.

24And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all those dwelling in Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they pursued them, and they had fallen (all of them by the edge of the sword until they were consumed), that all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the mouth of the sword. 25And all who fell that day, from man and to woman, were two and ten thousand—all the men of Ai. For Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the battle lance until that he had devoted to destruction† all those dwelling in Ai. 27Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel plundered for themselves, according to the word of YHWH that He had commanded Joshua.

28And Joshua burned Ai† and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day. 29And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree† until the time of the evening; and at the going in of the sun, Joshua commanded that they should take down his corpse from the tree and cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raise over it a great heap of stones to this day.

Joshua Renews the Covenant
(Deuteronomy 27:1–10)

Then Joshua built an altar to YHWH, God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of YHWH had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses: “An altar of whole stones, over which he has not wielded iron.†” And they offered on it burnt offerings to YHWH, and they sacrificed peace offerings.

And he wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written before the faces of the sons of Israel. And all Israel, and its elders, and its officers, and its judges, stood on this side and on this side of the ark before the priests, the Levites who bore the ark of the covenant of YHWH, as well the sojourner as the native. Half of them were toward the front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them toward the front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of YHWH had commanded, that they should bless the people of Israel at the first.

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to all written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourner who was living among them.

Footnotes:

18 Or javelin; twice in this verse, and also in verse 26
26 Forms of the Hebrew cherem refer to the giving over of things or persons to YHWH, either by destroying them or by giving them as an offering.
28 Ai means ruin.
29 Or He impaled the king of Ai on a pole
31 Exodus 20:25; Deuteronomy 27:5