1And Yehovah said to Joshua, Do not fear, nor be dismayed: take all the people of war with you, 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; 2and you shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king: only its spoil, and its cattle, you shall take as plunder for yourselves: set an ambush for the city behind it. 3So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai: and Joshua chose thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them out by night. 4And he commanded them, saying, Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city; do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready: 5and I, and all the people who are with me, will approach the city. And it shall happen, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them; 6and they will come out after us, until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, They are fleeing before us, as at the first: so we will flee before them; 7and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city: for Yehovah your God will deliver it into your hand. 8And it shall be, when you have seized the city, that you shall set the city on fire; according to the word of Yehovah you shall do: see, I have commanded you. 9And Joshua sent them out; and they went to the ambush, and stayed between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua lodged that night among the people. 10And Joshua rose up early in the morning, and mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. 11And all the people, even the men of war who were with him, went up, and drew near, and came before the city, and encamped on the north side of Ai: now there was a valley between him and Ai. 12And he took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of the city. 13So they set the people, even all the host that was on the north of the city, and their men in ambush who were on the west of the city; and Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley. 14And it happened, when the king of Ai saw it, that 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 did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city. 15And Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness. 16And all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them: and they pursued Joshua, and were drawn away from the city. 17And there was not a man left in Ai or Beth-el, who did not go out after Israel: and they left the city open, and pursued Israel. 18And Yehovah said to Joshua, Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai; for I will give it into your hand. And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city. 19And the 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; and they hurried and set the city on fire. 20And when 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: and the people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers. 21And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai. 22And the others came out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they struck them down, so that they let none of them remain or escape. 23And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua. 24And it happened, when Israel had finished slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they pursued them, and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all Israel returned to Ai, and struck it with the edge of the sword. 25And all who fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. 26For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. 27Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took as plunder for themselves, according to the word of Yehovah which he commanded Joshua. 28So Joshua burned Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day. 29And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until the evening: and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree, and cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised over it a great heap of stones, to this day. 30Then Joshua built an altar to Yehovah, the God of Israel, on mount Ebal, 31as Moses the servant of Yehovah commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones, on which no man had lifted up any iron: and they offered burnt offerings on it to Yehovah, and sacrificed peace offerings. 32And he wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote, in the presence of the children of Israel. 33And all Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on this side of the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, who carried the ark of the covenant of Yehovah, the sojourner as well as the native-born; half of them in front of mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of mount Ebal; as Moses the servant of Yehovah had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel. 34And afterward 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 did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who were among them.