¹The LORD said to Joshua , “Don’t be afraid , and don’t be dismayed . Take all the warriors with you , and arise , go up to Ai . Behold , I have given into your hand the king of Ai , with his people , his city , and his land.

²You shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king , except you shall take its goods and its livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it .”

³So Joshua arose , with all the warriors , to go up to Ai . Joshua chose thirty thousand men , the mighty men of valour , and sent them out by night .

⁴He commanded them , saying, “Behold , you shall lie in ambush against the city , behind the city . Don’t go very far from the city , but all of you be ready .

⁵I and all the people who are with me will approach the city . It shall happen , when they come out against us , as at the first , that we will flee before them .

⁶They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city ; for they will say, ‘They flee before us , like the first time .’ So we will flee before them ,

⁷and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city ; for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand .

⁸It shall be , when you have seized the city , that you shall set the city on fire . You shall do this according to the LORD ’s word . Behold , I have commanded you .”

⁹Joshua sent them out ; and they went to set up the ambush , and stayed between Bethel and Ai on the west side of Ai ; but Joshua stayed amongst the people that night .

¹⁰Joshua rose up early in the morning , mustered the people , and went up , he and the elders of Israel , before the people to Ai .

¹¹All the people , even the men of war who were with him , went up and came near , and came before the city and encamped on the north side of Ai . Now there was a valley between him and Ai .

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

¹³So they set the people , even all the army who was on the north of the city , and their ambush on the west of the city ; and Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley .

¹⁴When the king of Ai saw it , they hurried and rose up early , and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle , he and all his people , at the time appointed , before the Arabah ; but he didn’t know that there was an ambush against him behind the city .

¹⁵Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them , and fled by the way of the wilderness .

¹⁶All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them . They pursued Joshua , and were drawn away from the city .

¹⁷There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who didn’t go out after Israel . They left the city open , and pursued Israel .

¹⁸The LORD said to Joshua , “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand towards Ai , for I will give it into your hand .”

Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand towards the city .

¹⁹The ambush arose quickly out of their place , and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand and entered into the city and took it . They hurried and set the city on fire .

²⁰When the men of Ai looked behind them , they saw , and behold , the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven , and they had no power to flee this way or that way . The people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers .

²¹When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city , and that the smoke of the city ascended , then they turned back and killed the men of Ai .

²²The others came out of the city against them , so they were in the middle of Israel , some on this side , and some on that side . They struck them , so that they let none of them remain or escape .

²³They captured the king of Ai alive , and brought him to Joshua .

²⁴When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field , in the wilderness in which they pursued them , and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed , all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword .

²⁵All that fell that day , both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the people of Ai .

²⁶For Joshua didn’t draw back his hand , with which he stretched out the javelin , until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai .

²⁷Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city , according to the LORD ’s word which he commanded Joshua .

²⁸So Joshua burnt Ai and made it a heap forever , even a desolation , to this day .

²⁹He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the evening . At sundown , Joshua commanded , and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city , and raised a great heap of stones on it that remains to this day .

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

³¹as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel , as it is written in the book of the law of Moses : an altar of uncut stones, on which no one had lifted up any iron . They offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings .

³²He wrote there on the stones a copy of Moses ’ law , which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel .

³³All Israel , with their elders , officers , and judges , stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests , who carried the ark of the LORD ’s covenant , the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim , and half of them in front of Mount Ebal , as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first , that they should bless the people of Israel .

³⁴Afterward he read all the words of the law , the blessing and the curse , according to all that is written in the book of the law .

³⁵There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua didn’t read before all the assembly of Israel , with the women, the little ones , and the foreigners who were amongst them .