Joshua 8:1-15 ▼

1 And 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.

2 And 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.”

3 And 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.

4 And 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.

5 And 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.

6 And 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,

7 and you? shall rise from the ambush and seize the city, for YHWH your? God will deliver it into your? hands.

8 And 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?.”

9 And 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 in the midst of the people.

10 And 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.

11 And 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.

12 And he took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and between Ai, on the west side of the city.

13 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.

14 And 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.

15 And Joshua and all Israel were struck before their faces, and they fled by the way of the wilderness.