King James Version

1 And the Lord 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; see, 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 its king; only its spoil and its livestock you shall plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it. 3 And Joshua rose up, and all the people of the war, to go up against Ai. And Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty men of valor and sent them at night. 4 And he commanded them, saying, "See, you are lying in wait for the city from behind the city; do not distance yourselves very much from the city, and you shall all be prepared." 5 And I and all the people who are with me will approach the city, and it will be that when they come out to meet us as in the beginning, we will test before them. 6 And they will go out behind us until we have taken them from the city, for they will say, "We are fleeing before them as we did at first," and we will flee before them. 7 And you will rise from the ambush and you will take the city, and the Lord your God will give it into your hand. 8 And when you take the city, you shall set the city on fire, as the word of the Lord you shall do. Behold, I have commanded you. 9 And Joshua sent them, and they went to the west and they sat between Bethel and Ai, westward of Ai, and Joshua lodged that night among the people. 10 And Joshua rose early in the morning and counted the people, and he and the elders of Israel went up before the people of Ai. 11 And all the people of the battle that were with him approached and came against the city and camped north of Ai and the valley was between them and between Ai. 12 And he took five thousand men and placed them as an ambush between Bethel and between Ai, west of the city. 13 And the people set the whole camp north of the city and its rear by the sea, and Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley. 14 And it happened when the king of Ai saw, that they hurried and got up early, and the men of the city went out to meet Israel for battle; he and all his people appointed an assembly before the Arabah, and he did not know that an ambush was lying in wait for him behind the city. 15 And Joshua and all Israel were struck before them, and they fled along the way of the wilderness. 16 And all the people who were in the city cried out to pursue them, and they pursued after Joshua and they broke away from the city. 17 And no man remained in Bethel and Ai who did not go after Israel, and they left the open city and pursued after Israel. 18 And the LORD said to Joshua, "Stretch out the spear that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand." And Joshua stretched out the spear that was in his hand toward the city. 19 And the ambush rose up quickly from its place, and they ran like hand signals, and they came to the city and captured it, and they hurried and set the city on fire. 20 And the men of Ai turned after them and saw, and behold, smoke had risen from the city that was in the sky, and there was no hand to flee there or here, and the people that fled in the wilderness turned back to the pursuer. 21 And Joshua and all Israel saw that they had captured the ambush against the city, and that the smoke of the city had risen, and they turned back and struck the men of Ai. 22 And these came out from the city to meet them, and they were for Israel within these and those, and they struck them until they left not a survivor or fugitive. 23 And you took hold of the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua. 24 And it came to pass when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness, where they had chased them, that they all fell by the edge of the sword until they were consumed. And all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. 25 And all the fallen on that day, from man to woman, were twelve thousand, all the men of Ai. 26 And Joshua did not withdraw his hand that he stretched out with the spear until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. 27 Only the livestock and the spoil of that city, they Israel plundered as the word of the Lord which He commanded Joshua. 28 And Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins until this day. 29 And they hung the king of Ai on a tree until evening, and when the sun set, Joshua commanded, and they took down his body from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate, and they raised a great heap of stones over it to this day. 30 Then Joshua will build an altar to the LORD God of Israel on Mount Ebal. 31 As Moses commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones upon which no iron has been lifted, and they will bring burnt offerings to the Lord and they will sacrifice peace offerings. 32 And he wrote there on the stones the copy of the law of Moses, which he had written before the children of Israel. 33 And all of Israel, along with its elders, and its officers, and its judges, are standing this way and that in front of the ark opposite the priests, the Levites carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as the stranger, so the native, half of them toward Mount Gerizim and half of them toward Mount Ebal, as Moses commanded, the servant of the Lord, to bless the people of Israel for the first time. 34 And after this, he called out all the words of the Torah, the blessing and the curse, as it is written in the book of the Torah. 35 There was not a word from all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women and the children and the stranger who walked among them.