Joshua 8
8
The Israelites Defeat Ai
1Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take all your fighting men and attack Ai, for I have given you the king of Ai, his people, his town, and his land. 2You will destroy them as you destroyed Jericho and its king. But this time you may keep the plunder and the livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the town.”
3So Joshua and all the fighting men set out to attack Ai. Joshua chose 30,000 of his best warriors and sent them out at night 4with these orders: “Hide in ambush close behind the town and be ready for action. 5When our main army attacks, the men of Ai will come out to fight as they did before, and we will run away from them. 6We will let them chase us until we have drawn them away from the town. For they will say, ‘The Israelites are running away from us as they did before.’ Then, while we are running from them, 7you will jump up from your ambush and take possession of the town, for the Lord your God will give it to you. 8Set the town on fire, as the Lord has commanded. You have your orders.”
9So they left and went to the place of ambush between Bethel and the west side of Ai. But Joshua remained among the people in the camp that night. 10Early the next morning Joshua roused his men and started toward Ai, accompanied by the elders of Israel. 11All the fighting men who were with Joshua marched in front of the town and camped on the north side of Ai, with a valley between them and the town. 12That night Joshua sent about 5,000 men to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the town. 13So they stationed the main army north of the town and the ambush west of the town. Joshua himself spent that night in the valley.
14When the king of Ai saw the Israelites across the valley, he and all his army hurried out early in the morning and attacked the Israelites at a place overlooking the Jordan Valley.#8:14 Hebrew the Arabah. But he didn’t realize there was an ambush behind the town. 15Joshua and the Israelite army fled toward the wilderness as though they were badly beaten. 16Then all the men in the town were called out to chase after them. In this way, they were lured away from the town. 17There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel#8:17 Some manuscripts lack or Bethel. who did not chase after the Israelites, and the town was left wide open.
18Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Point the spear in your hand toward Ai, for I will hand the town over to you.” Joshua did as he was commanded. 19As soon as Joshua gave this signal, all the men in ambush jumped up from their position and poured into the town. They quickly captured it and set it on fire.
20When the men of Ai looked behind them, smoke from the town was filling the sky, and they had nowhere to go. For the Israelites who had fled in the direction of the wilderness now turned on their pursuers. 21When Joshua and all the other Israelites saw that the ambush had succeeded and that smoke was rising from the town, they turned and attacked the men of Ai. 22Meanwhile, the Israelites who were inside the town came out and attacked the enemy from the rear. So the men of Ai were caught in the middle, with Israelite fighters on both sides. Israel attacked them, and not a single person survived or escaped. 23Only the king of Ai was taken alive and brought to Joshua.
24When the Israelite army finished chasing and killing all the men of Ai in the open fields, they went back and finished off everyone inside. 25So the entire population of Ai, including men and women, was wiped out that day—12,000 in all. 26For Joshua kept holding out his spear until everyone who had lived in Ai was completely destroyed.#8:26 The Hebrew term used here refers to the complete consecration of things or people to the Lord, either by destroying them or by giving them as an offering. 27Only the livestock and the treasures of the town were not destroyed, for the Israelites kept these as plunder for themselves, as the Lord had commanded Joshua. 28So Joshua burned the town of Ai,#8:28 Ai means “ruin.” and it became a permanent mound of ruins, desolate to this very day.
29Joshua impaled the king of Ai on a sharpened pole and left him there until evening. At sunset the Israelites took down the body, as Joshua commanded, and threw it in front of the town gate. They piled a great heap of stones over him that can still be seen today.
The Lord’s Covenant Renewed
30Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal. 31He followed the commands that Moses the Lord’s servant had written in the Book of Instruction: “Make me an altar from stones that are uncut and have not been shaped with iron tools.”#8:31 Exod 20:25; Deut 27:5-6. Then on the altar they presented burnt offerings and peace offerings to the Lord. 32And as the Israelites watched, Joshua copied onto the stones of the altar#8:32 Hebrew onto the stones. the instructions Moses had given them.
33Then all the Israelites—foreigners and native-born alike—along with the elders, officers, and judges, were divided into two groups. One group stood in front of Mount Gerizim, the other in front of Mount Ebal. Each group faced the other, and between them stood the Levitical priests carrying the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant. This was all done according to the commands that Moses, the servant of the Lord, had previously given for blessing the people of Israel.
34Joshua then read to them all the blessings and curses Moses had written in the Book of Instruction. 35Every word of every command that Moses had ever given was read to the entire assembly of Israel, including the women and children and the foreigners who lived among them.
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Joshua 8: NLT
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Yehoshua 8
8
1And Hashem said unto Yehoshua, Fear not, neither be thou discouraged; take kol Am HaMilchamah with thee, and arise, go up to Ai; see, I have given into thy yad the melech HaAi, and his people, and his city, and his land;
2And thou shalt do to Ai and her melech just as thou didst unto Yericho and her melech; only the plunder thereof, and the livestock thereof, shall ye carry off for yourselves. Behind it set thee an ambush for the Ir (city) [of Ai].
3So Yehoshua arose, and kol Am HaMilchamah, to go up against Ai; and Yehoshua chose out shloshim elef ish gibborei hachayil, and sent them out by lailah.
4And he commanded them, saying, See, ye shall set an ambush against the Ir, even behind the Ir; go not very far from the Ir, but be ye all nekhonim (ready, on alert, set, prepared);
5And I, and Kol HaAm that are with me, will approach unto the Ir; and it shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the rishonah, that we will flee before them,
6 (For they will come out after us) until we have drawn them from the Ir; for they will say, They flee before us, just as at the rishonah; therefore we will flee before them.
7Then ye shall rise up from the ambush, and seize upon the Ir; for Hashem Eloheichem will deliver it into your yad.
8And it shall be, when ye have taken the Ir, that ye shall set eish to the Ir; according to the Davar Hashem shall ye do. See, I have commanded you.
9Yehoshua therefore sent them forth; and they went to the place of ambush, and waited between Beit-El and Ai, on the west side of Ai; but Yehoshua spent that lailah among HaAm.
10And Yehoshua rose up early in the boker, and mustered HaAm, and went up, he and the Ziknei Yisroel, before HaAm to Ai.
11And Kol HaAm HaMilchamah that were with him, went up, and drew near, and came before the Ir, and encamped on the north side of Ai; now there was the gey (valley) between them and Ai.
12And he took about chameshet alafim ish, and set them to lie in ambush between Beit-El and Ai, on the west side of the Ir.
13And when they had set HaAm, even Kol HaMachaneh that was on the north of the Ir, and the ambush to the west of the Ir, Yehoshua went that lailah into the midst of the emek (valley).
14And it came to pass, when the melech of Ai saw it, that they hastened and rose up early, and the anshei HaIr went out against Yisroel in the milchamah, he and all his people, at the place, before the Aravah; but he had no da'as that there was an ambush against him set up behind the Ir.
15And Yehoshua and kol Yisroel let themselves be driven before them, and fled by the derech hamidbar.
16And kol HaAm that were in Ai were called together to pursue after them; and they pursued after Yehoshua, and were lured from the Ir.
17And there was not an ish left in Ai or Beit-El, that went not out after Yisroel; and they left the Ir open, and pursued after Yisroel.
18And Hashem said unto Yehoshua, Stretch out the kidon (javelin) that is in thy yad toward Ai; for I will give it into thine yad. And Yehoshua stretched out the kidon that he had in his yad toward the Ir.
19And the ambush arose quickly out of their makom, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his yad; and they entered into the Ir, and took it, and hastened and set eish to the Ir.
20And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, hinei, the ashan HaIr (smoke of the city) ascended up to Shomayim, and they had no way to flee here or there; and HaAm that fled to the midbar turned back upon the pursuers.
21And when Yehoshua and kol Yisroel saw that the ambush had taken the Ir, and that the ashan HaIr ascended, then they turned again, and attacked the anshei HaAi.
22Then these came out of the Ir against them; so they were in the midst of Yisroel, some on this side, and some on that side; and they struck them down, until they left none of them sarid (remnant, survivor) or palit (refugee, fugitive).
23And the melech HaAi (literally, the King of Ruin) they took alive, and brought him to Yehoshua.
24And it came to pass, when Yisroel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the sadeh, in the midbar wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the cherev, until they were consumed, that kol Yisroel returned unto Ai, and struck it with the edge of the cherev.
25And so it was, that all that fell that yom, both of ish and isha, were sheneym asar elef, even kol anshei HaAi.
26For Yehoshua drew not his yad back, wherewith he stretched out the kidon, until he had utterly destroyed kol yoshvei HaAi.
27Only the behemah and the plunder of that Ir Yisroel carried off for themselves, according to the Davar Hashem which He commanded Yehoshua.
28And Yehoshua burned Ai, and made it a tel olam (heap forever), even a desolation unto yom hazeh.
29And the melech HaAi he hanged on HaEtz until the time of erev; and as soon as the shemesh was down, Yehoshua commanded that they should take his nevelah (body) down from HaEtz, and cast it at the petach sha'ar HaIr, and raised thereon a pile of avanim, that remaineth unto Yom Hazeh.
30Then Yehoshua built a Mizbe'ach unto Hashem Elohei Yisroel in Har Eival,
31Just as Moshe Eved Hashem commanded the Bnei Yisroel, as it is written in the Sefer Torah Moshe, a Mizbe'ach avanim shelemot, over which no man hath lift up any barzel (iron); and they offered thereon olot unto Hashem, and sacrificed shelamim.
32And he wrote there upon the avanim a mishneh (copy) Torat Moshe, which he wrote in the presence of the Bnei Yisroel.
33And Kol Yisroel, and their Zekenim, and shoterim, and their shofetim, stood on this side the Aron and on that side facing the Kohanim the Levi'im, which bore the Aron Brit Hashem, as well the ger as the ezrach (he that was born among them); half of them over against Har Gerizim, and half of them over against Har Eival; just as Moshe Eved Hashem had commanded before, in connection with the blessing of HaAm Yisroel.
34And afterward he read kol divrei HaTorah, the brocha and kelalah, according to all that is written in the Sefer HaTorah.
35There was not a davar of all that Moshe commanded, which Yehoshua read not before kol Kehal Yisroel, with the nashim, and the little ones, and the ger that were living among them.
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