¹Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear and do not be afraid. Take all the military people with you, and arise and go up to Ai. Look, I have delivered the king of Ai into your hand, with his people and his city and his land. ²So do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, but you may take as booty its spoils and its cattle for yourselves. Ambush the city behind it.” ³So Joshua arose with all the military people to go up to Ai, and Joshua selected thirty thousand men, valiant warriors, and he sent them out by night. ⁴And he commanded them, and he said, “Look, you are ambushing the city behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be prepared. ⁵And I and all the people who are with me will approach the city, and it will be the case that they will come out against us as the first time, and we will flee before them. ⁶And they will come after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are fleeing before us as the first time’, and we will flee before them. ⁷Then you will arise from the ambush and take possession of the city, and the Lord your God will deliver it into your hand. ⁸And it will be the case that when you capture the city, you will set the city on fire. You will act according to the word of the Lord. Look, I have commanded you.” ⁹So Joshua sent them off, and they went to the ambush, and they remained between Beth-El and Ai to the west of Ai, while Joshua lodged that night among the people. ¹⁰Then Joshua got up early in the morning, and he reviewed the people, then he and the elders of Israel went up before the people to Ai. ¹¹And all the military people who were with him went up and approached it, and they came opposite the city, and they encamped to the north of Ai. Now there was a valley between them and Ai. ¹²And he took about five thousand men and stationed them as an ambush between Beth-El and Ai to the west of the city. ¹³And they stationed the people – the whole camp which was to the north of the city – and their trap to the west of the city, while Joshua went into the valley that night. ¹⁴And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that the men of the city quickly got up and went out to confront Israel in war – he and all his people at the appointed time, before the arid tract – but he did not know that there was an ambush for him behind the city. ¹⁵Then Joshua and all Israel acted as if beaten by them, and they fled in the direction of the desert. ¹⁶Then all the people who were in the city were called upon to pursue them. So they pursued Joshua, and they were drawn out of the city. ¹⁷And not a man remained in Ai or Beth-El who did not come out after Israel, and they left the city open, and they pursued Israel. ¹⁸And the Lord said to Joshua, “Point the spear in your hand towards Ai, for I will deliver it into your hand.” So Joshua pointed the spear in his hand towards the city. ¹⁹Then the ambush arose quickly from its place, and they started to run as he pointed his hand, and they came to the city and captured it, and they quickly set the city on fire. ²⁰And the men of Ai turned round and looked, and what they saw was the smoke of the city rising into the sky, and they did not have the ability to flee one way or another, and the people who were fleeing to the desert turned on the pursuer. ²¹And Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city, and that the smoke of the city was rising, and they turned round and attacked the men of the city. ²²Then the others came out of the city towards them, and Israel had them in a pincer, with some on one side and some on the other side, and they struck them down until they had not left a remnant or escapee. ²³But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua. ²⁴And it came to pass, when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open land in the desert in which they had chased them, and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword until they had been destroyed, that all Israel returned to Ai, and they struck it with the edge of the sword. ²⁵And all those that fell on that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand – the whole population of Ai. ²⁶And Joshua did not retract his hand with which he pointed the spear until he had obliterated all the inhabitants of Ai, ²⁷except that Israel took the spoils of the cattle and the booty of that city, according to the word of the Lord with which he had commanded Joshua. ²⁸Then Joshua burned Ai and made it an age-abiding mound – a desolation up to this day. ²⁹And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening time, and as the sun set, Joshua gave commandment, and they took his corpse down from the tree, and they cast it into the entrance of the gate of the city, and they raised up on it a great heap of stones, which is there up to this day. ³⁰Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel at Mount Ebal, ³¹as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses – an altar of pure stones, which no-one has used iron on – and they offered burnt offerings to the Lord on it, and they 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 sons of Israel. ³³And all Israel and its elders and officers and its judges stood on either side of the ark, opposite the Levite priests who bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord – the foreigner as well as the native citizen, half of them facing Mount Gerizim and half of them facing Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded at the start, so as to bless the people of Israel. ³⁴And after that he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to everything that was written in the book of the law. ³⁵There was no word in everything which Moses commanded which Joshua did not read in the presence of the whole convocation of Israel, including the women and the children and the foreigner who walked in their midst.