1And the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear, nor be discouraged. Take all the men of war with you, and go up and attack Ai; I have delivered the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land, over to you. 2And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king; except this time, you may plunder it, and take its cattle, they shall be prey for you. Set up an ambush behind the city.” 3So Joshua, and all the men of war went out against Ai; and Joshua chose thirty thousand of his men, and sent them out by night. 4And he ordered them: “You shall lie in wait behind the city; remain near it, and be ready. 5I, and the men who are with me will approach the city; and when they come out against us, we will run from before them, as at the first, 6They will come out when we run from before them, until we have lured them away from the city; for they will say, ‘They run from us, just as before’. 7Then you shall rise from ambush, and seize the city; for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand. 8And when you have taken the city, you shall set it on fire, as the LORD commanded you.” 9Joshua then sent them off; and they went to lie in ambush, and remained hidden between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; but Joshua camped that night among the rest of his men.

10And Joshua rose early in the morning, mustered the men, and he and the elders of Israel, went up to Ai. 11And the men with him approached the city, and camped on the north side of Ai, with a valley between them and Ai. 12And he took about five thousand men, and set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city. 13And they deployed all the men that were on the north of the city, and their ambushers on the west of the city; but Joshua spent that night in the valley. 14And when the king of Ai saw the Israelites across the valley, he and all his men rushed out of the city, to a certain place overlooking the Jordan valley, to battle Israel; but were unaware of the ambush set up against them behind the city. 15And Joshua and his men acted as if they were driven back by them, and fled by way of the wilderness. 16And all the men of Ai gathered to pursue Joshua and his men, and were drawn away from the city. 17There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel, who did not pursue Israel; and they left the city open in their haste to pursue Israel.

18And the LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the spear that is in your hand toward Ai; for I will give it to you.” And Joshua stretched out the spear in his hand toward the city. 19And when he stretched out his hand, the ambush quickly arose out of their place; and rushed into the city, took it, and quickly set the city on fire. 20And when the men of Ai looked behind them and saw the smoke of the city rising toward heaven, and that they had no place to escape in any direction; and that the men who had fled toward the wilderness had turned back upon them. 21For when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that smoke rose from the burning city, then they turned around, and attacked the men of Ai. 22And those that took the city also rushed out of it against them; so that they were caught between the Israelites, some on each side of them. And Israel slew them, letting none of them remain or escape. 23And they captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua. 24And, when Israel had finished slaughtering all the inhabitants of Ai by the sword in the field and in the wilderness where they had chased them, all the Israelites returned to Ai, and killed everyone remaining in it with the sword. 25All those of Ai that died that day, of men and women, were twelve thousand. 26For Joshua continued to stretch out his hand which held the spear, until they had completely destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. 27But the cattle and the goods of that city, Israel took for themselves, according to what the LORD had commanded Joshua. 28And so Joshua burned Ai, and made it a heap of rubble forever, even unto this day. 29And he impaled the king of Ai on a tree until evening; and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded them to take his carcass down from the tree, and throw it down at the entrance of the gate of the city, and heaped upon it a huge pile of stones, that remains to this day.

30Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD God of Israel in Mount Ebal, 31As Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded the Israelites. Joshua built an altar of whole stones, upon which no man had used an iron tool on, as written in the book of the law of Moses (Deut.11:26-32, 27:2-3); and they offered on it burnt offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings. 32And he wrote upon the stones there a copy of the law of Moses, in the presence of the Israelites. 33Then all the Israelites, as well the sojourners, along with the elders, officers, and judges, were divided into two groups. One group stood in front of Mount Gerizim; the other group in front of Mount Ebal. Each group faced the other, and between them stood the Levitical priests that carried the Ark of the covenant of the LORD. This was all done according to the commands that Moses, the servant of the LORD, had previously given (Deut.11:29, 27:12) for blessing the people of Israel. 34Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law - the blessings and curses – just as it is written in the book of the law. 35There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded, which Joshua did not read before the entire congregation of Israel, including the women, their little ones, and the sojourners among them.