Joshua 8:16-35 ▼

16 And 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.

17 And 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.

18 And 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.

19 And 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.

20 And 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.

21 And 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.

22 And 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.

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

24 And 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.

25 And all who fell that day, from man and to woman, were two and ten thousand—all the men of Ai.

26 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.

27 Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel plundered for themselves, according to the word of YHWH that He had commanded Joshua.

28 And Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day.

29 And 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.

30 Then Joshua built an altar to YHWH, God of Israel, on Mount Ebal,

31 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.

32 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.

33 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 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.

34 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.

35 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.