The Book of Joshua

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- Kapitel 8 -

Then Yahweh said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take with you all the soldiers you have and go there again. Go up to Ai. See! I am giving you victory over the king of Ai, and you will capture his people, and his city, and his land.

Your army will do to the people of Ai and their king like what you did to the people of Jericho and their king. But this time I will permit you to take all their possessions and keep them for yourselves. But first, tell some of your soldiers to hide behind the city and prepare to attack it.”

So Joshua led all his army toward Ai. He chose thirty thousand men, his strongest men, men known for their bravery in battle, and he sent them out during the night.

He said to them, “Pay attention! Some of you must prepare a surprise attack on the city, an attack formed behind the city. Do not go far from the city. All of you get ready to attack.

I and the men who are with me will march toward the city in the morning. The men in the city will come out to fight us, as they did before. Then we will turn around and start to run away from them.

They will think that we are running away from them like we did before. So they will chase us away from the city. While we are running away from them,

those of you who are hiding must come out and rush into the city and capture it. Yahweh, your God, will give the city to you.

After you capture the city, burn it. Do what Yahweh has commanded us to do. Those are the orders I am giving to you.”

Then Joshua prepared to send some of them to hide and wait between Ai and Bethel, which was west of Ai. But Joshua slept that night among the main force of soldiers.

Early the next morning, Joshua gathered his soldiers together. He led the soldiers and the other Israelite leaders; they all went to attack the people of Ai.

They all set up their tents close to Ai, just to the north of the city, where all the people of the city could see them. There was a valley between them and the city of Ai.

Joshua had taken about five thousand men and told them to go and stay hidden so they could make a surprise attack, just west of the city, between Ai and Bethel.

So those men did that. The main group of soldiers was north of the city, and the others were hiding west of the city. That night Joshua went down into the valley.

When the king of Ai saw the Israelite army, he and his soldiers got up early the next morning and quickly went out of the city to fight them. They went to a place east of the city, and from there they could look over the plain of the Jordan River, but they did not know that some Israelite soldiers were hiding ready to attack them from behind the city.

Joshua and the Israelite soldiers who were with him allowed the army of Ai to push them back. And the army of Israel ran toward the wilderness.

The men in Ai were ordered to chase after Joshua and his men. So they left the city and pursued Joshua and his army.

All the men of Ai and the men of Bethel pursued the Israelite army. They did not leave even one man in Ai to defend it. And they left the city gates wide open.

Then Yahweh said to Joshua, “Lift up your spear and point it toward Ai, because I am going to enable your soldiers to capture it!” So Joshua pointed his spear toward Ai.

When the Israelite men who were hiding saw that, they rushed out from the places where they were hiding and ran into the city. They captured it and quickly set it on fire.

When the men of Ai looked back, they saw smoke rising from their city. But they could not escape, because the Israelite troops stopped running away and had turned around and now were facing the army that had been coming after them.

Joshua and his men saw that the men who had been hiding had captured the city and were burning it, and they saw the smoke rising. So they turned back and began killing the men of Ai.

Meanwhile, the soldiers who had captured the city came out and attacked them from the rear. So the men of Ai were surrouned by the two groups of Israelite soldiers. None of the men of Ai escaped. The Israelites fought until they killed all of them.

But they captured the king of Ai and brought him to Joshua.

While they were fighting, the Israelite army pursued the men of Ai into the fields and into the wilderness, and killed all of them. Then they went to Ai and killed everyone and anything still alive there.

They killed twelve thousand men and women.

Joshua continued to point his spear toward Ai until all the people in Ai had been killed.

The Israelite soldiers took for themselves the animals and the other things that had belonged to the people of Ai, just as Yahweh had told Joshua that they should do.

Joshua and his soldiers burned Ai and caused it to become a pile of ruins forever. It is an abandoned place even today.

Joshua hanged the king of Ai on a tree and left his corpse hanging there until the evening. At sunset Joshua told his men to take the king’s body down from the tree and to throw it where the city gate had been. After they did that, they made a great mound of rocks on top of his body. That pile of rocks is still there to this day.

Joshua Renews the Covenant

(Deuteronomy 27:1–10)

Then Joshua told his men to build on Mount Ebal an altar for Yahweh, the God of Israel.

They built it just like Moses, the man who served God well, had written previously in the laws that God had given to him. They made it from stones that had not been cut, stones on which they had done no work using iron tools. The Israelites then offered sacrifices to Yahweh that were burned completely on the altar. They also made sacrifices to promise friendship with him.

As the Israelites watched, Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the laws that Yahweh had given to Moses.

The Israelite leaders, the officials, the judges, and other Israelites were there, standing nearby. Many people who were not Israelites were also there. Half of the people stood on one side of the valley below Mount Ebal, and the other half of the people stood on the other side of the valley below Mount Gerizim. The sacred chest was in the valley between the two groups. And they blessed the people of Israel just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had told them to do, at the very first.

Then Joshua read to the people all that Moses had written previously. That included what Yahweh had taught them and the ways that he promised to bless them if they obeyed his commands, or to curse them if they disobeyed them.

Joshua carefully read all the commands that Moses had given; he read every word in front of the entire assembly of Israel. All the women and the little children were there as well, and also the foreigners who were living among the people of Israel.

The 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.

You 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.”

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

He 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.

I 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.

They 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,

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

It 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.”

Joshua 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 among the people that night.

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

All 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.

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

So 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.

When 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.

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

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

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

The LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.

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. They hurried and set the city on fire.

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. The people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers.

When 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.

The 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.

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

When 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.

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

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

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

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

He 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.

Joshua Renews the Covenant

(Deuteronomy 27:1–10)

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

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 one had lifted up any iron. They offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings.

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

All 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.

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.

There 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 among them.