1 ¶ Then the LORD said to Joshua, Do not fear, or be dismayed: take all the men of war with you, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have placed in your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land:

2 And you shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king: only you can take its goods, and cattle, for yourselves as spoils: set an ambush behind the city.

3 ¶ So Joshua, and all the men of war, arose to go up against Ai: and Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty men of valor, and sent them out by night.

4 And his command to them was, You will lie in ambush behind the city: do go not very far from the city, but all of you be ready:

5 And I, and all the people who are with me, will approach the city: and when they come out against us, as they did before, we will run from them,

6 And they will chase us until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, They run from us, as at the first: so we will run from them.

7 Then you shall rise up from the ambush, and seize the city: for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.

8 And when you have taken the city, set it on fire: doing as the LORD has commanded. See, I have given you the orders.

9 So Joshua sent them forth: and they went to lie in ambush, and remained between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua lodged that night among the people.

10 And Joshua got up early in the morning, and mustered the men, then he, and the elders of Israel, led the men to Ai.

11 And all the people, the men of war that were with him, went up, and approached the city, coming before it, and camped on its north side: now there was a valley between them and Ai.

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

13 So when they had stationed the people, the army that was on the north of the city, and the men in ambush on the west of the city, that night Joshua went down into the middle of the valley.

14 And when the king of Ai saw it, he and all his people, they rose quickly and the men of the city went out early in the morning, to fight against Israel, at the place before the plain, that had been chosen; but he did not know of the ambush against him behind the city.

15 And Joshua and all Israel acted if they were beaten by them, and fled toward the wilderness.

16 And all the people that were in Ai were called together to pursue them: and they pursued Joshua, and were drawn away from the city.

17 And there was not a man left in Ai or Bethel, who did not go out after Israel: so leaving the city open, they pursued 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 he had in his hand toward the city.

19 And the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand: and entered the city, and took it, and were quick to set the city on fire.

20 And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw the smoke of the city ascending up to heaven, and they had no place they could run too: when the Israelites who fled to the wilderness turned back on their pursuers.

21 And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and the smoke of the city going up, then they turned around, and slew the men of Ai.

22 When the others came out of the city against them; they were in the middle of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and Israel struck them down, letting none of them remain or escape.

23 ¶ But they captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua.

24 And it came to pass, when Israel had finished slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, and in the wilderness into which they chased them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai, and struck it down with the edge of the sword.

25 And so it was, that all who fell that day, both of men and women, numbered twelve thousand, including all the men of Ai.

26 For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.

27 But Israel took the cattle and the goods of that city for themselves as spoils, according to the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua.

28 And Joshua burned Ai, and made it a heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.

29 And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until sunset: and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua directed them to take his body down from the tree, and throw it at the entrance of the city gate, and raise over it a great heap of stones, that remain to this day.

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

31 As 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 tool has been used: and on it they offered burnt offerings to the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings.

32 And there he wrote a copy of the law of Moses on the stones, writing it in the presence of the children of Israel.

33 And all Israel, both immigrants and those born among them, with their elders, and officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark before the priests of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD; 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 before, that they should bless the people of Israel.

34 And afterward Joshua read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, 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 did not read before the entire the congregation of Israel, including the women, the children, and the foreigners who lived among them.