War with Ai
Table of Contents
1 [To Joshua]: Do not fear nor be dismayed.
Take all your army with you and go up to Ai. I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, city, and land.
2 Do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king.
Only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall you take for a prey unto yourselves: lay you an ambush for the city behind it.
3 Joshua chose out 30,000 mighty men of valour, and sent them away by night.
4 Lie in wait behind the city and be ready. Do not go very far from the city.
5 I and my people will approach the city. They will come out against us.
6 We will flee from them as they chase us and we will draw them from the city.
7 Then you shall rise up from the ambush, and seize the city. Enki will deliver it into your hand.
8 After you have taken the city, burn it according to the commandment of Enki.
9 Joshua sent them forth and they went to lie in ambush, and abode between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai.
But Joshua lodged that night among the people.
10 Joshua rose up early in the morning and assembled the people.
They, with the elders of Israel, went up before the people to Ai.
11 Joshua’s men pitched on the north side of Ai so that there was a valley between them and Ai.
12 He took 5,000 men and set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.
13 WSo the soldiers took up their positions—with the main camp to the north of the city and the ambush to the west of it. That night Joshua went into the valley.
14 When the king of Ai saw it, they hastened and rose up early. Their men went out against Israel to battle.
He assembled all his people, at a time appointed, in the plain.
But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.
15 Joshua and his army fled into the wilderness as if they were beaten.
16 Everyone in Ai were called to pursue after them and were drawn away from the city.
17 There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel.
They left the city open.
15 [to Joshua:] Stretch out the spear in your hand toward Ai. I will give it into your hand.
Joshua stretched out the spear in his hand toward the city.
19 The ambush arose quickly out of their place.
They:
- ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand
- entered into the city and took it and set it on fire
20 When the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw the smoke from their city.
they had no power to flee this way or that way: and the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.
21 When Joshua and his army saw that the ambush had taken the city which was now burning, they turned and slew the men of Ai.
22 Those in the ambush also went out of the city against the men of Ai who were surrounded by Israelites.
The Israelites killed them all, 23 except for the king of Ai which they brought to Joshua.
24 When Israel finished killing all the men of Ai in the field and the wilderness, they returned to Ai and killed those who were inside.
25 On that day, 12,000 people of Ai died, including men and women.
26 This was because Joshua did not draw his hand back that stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
27 Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for themselves, as Enki commanded Joshua.
28 Joshua burnt Ai, and made it permanent ruin unto this day.
29 He impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening.
At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate.
They raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.
30 Then Joshua built an altar unto Enki in mount Ebal, 31 as Moses commanded the Israelites, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses.
It was an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used.
On it they offered to Enki burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings.
32 There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the law of Moses.
33 All the Israelites, with their elders, officials and judges, were standing on both sides of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, facing the Levitical priests who carried it.
Both the foreigners living among them and the native-born were there.
Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses had formerly commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel.
34 Afterward, he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them.