1
And Yahuah said to Yehoshua, “Do not fear, and do not be shattered. Take with you all the people of war, and rise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land.
2
And you shall do to Ai and to its king as you did to Yericho and to its king. Only its spoil and its livestock you may plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it.”
3
And Yehoshua rose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai. And Yehoshua chose thirty thousand men, mighty sons of strength, and sent them by night.
4
And he commanded them, saying, “See, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready.
5
And I, and all the people who are with me, will draw near to the city. And it shall be, when they come out to meet us as at the first, that we will flee before their face.
6
And they will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are fleeing before our face as at the first.’ And we will flee before their face.
7
Then you shall rise from the ambush and possess the city, and Yahuah your Elohim will give it into your hand.
8
And it shall be, when you have taken the city, that you shall set the city on fire. According to the word of Yahuah you shall do. See, I have commanded you.”
9
And Yehoshua sent them, and they went to the place of ambush and remained between Beit-El and Ai, west of Ai. And Yehoshua lodged that night in the midst of the people.
10
And Yehoshua rose early in the morning and counted the people, and he went up, he and the elders of Yisra’el, before the face of the people to Ai.
11
And all the people of war who were with him went up and drew near and came before the city, and encamped north of Ai. And the valley was between him and Ai.
12
And he took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Beit-El and Ai, west of the city.
13
And the people set all the camp that was north of the city, and its rear guard west of the city. And Yehoshua went that night into the midst of the valley.
14
And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw, that they hurried and rose early, and the men of the city went out to meet Yisra’el for battle, he and all his people, at the appointed place before the Arabah. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.
15
And Yehoshua and all Yisra’el were struck before their face, and they fled by the way of the wilderness.
16
And all the people who were in Ai were called together to pursue after them. And they pursued after Yehoshua and were drawn away from the city.
17
And not an ish remained in Ai or in Beit-El who did not go out after Yisra’el. And they left the city open and pursued after Yisra’el.
18
And Yahuah said to Yehoshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for into your hand I will give it.” And Yehoshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
19
And the ambush rose quickly from its place, and they ran as soon as he stretched out his hand. And they entered the city and captured it, and they hurried and set the city on fire.
20
And the men of Ai turned behind them and saw, and see, the smoke of the city went up toward the heavens, and there was no hand in them to flee this way or that way. And the people who had fled toward the wilderness turned back against the pursuers.
21
And Yehoshua and all Yisra’el saw that the ambush had captured the city and that the smoke of the city went up, and they turned back and struck the men of Ai.
22
And the others came out from the city to meet them, and they were in the midst of Yisra’el, these on this side and those on that side. And they struck them until no survivor or fugitive remained to them.
23
And the king of Ai they seized alive and brought him near to Yehoshua.
24
And it came to pass, when Yisra’el had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they had pursued them, and all of them had fallen by the mouth of the sword until they were consumed, that all Yisra’el returned to Ai and struck it with the mouth of the sword.
25
And all who fell on that day, from ish to ishah, were twelve thousand, all the people of Ai.
26
And Yehoshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction.
27
Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Yisra’el plundered for themselves, according to the word of Yahuah that He had commanded Yehoshua.
28
And Yehoshua burned Ai and made it an everlasting heap, a desolation to this day.
29
And the king of Ai he hanged upon a tree until evening. And at the going down of the sun Yehoshua commanded, and they took his corpse 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, which remains to this day.
30
Then Yehoshua built an altar to Yahuah, Elohim of Yisra’el, on Mount Eval,
31
according to what Mosheh, servant of Yahuah, had commanded the sons of Yisra’el, as it is written in the sefer of the Torah of Mosheh: an altar of whole stones, upon which no ish had lifted iron. And they caused ascending offerings to go up upon it to Yahuah and sacrificed peace offerings.
32
And there he wrote upon the stones a copy of the Torah of Mosheh, which he had written before the sons of Yisra’el.
33
And all Yisra’el, and their elders, and their officers, and their judges stood on this side and on that side of the ark before the kohenim, the Leviim, who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahuah—the sojourner as well as the native—half of them before Mount Gerizim and half of them before Mount Eval, according to what Mosheh, servant of Yahuah, had commanded at the first, to bless the people of Yisra’el.
34
And afterward he read all the words of the Torah, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the sefer of the Torah.
35
There was not a word from all that Mosheh had commanded that Yehoshua did not read before all the assembly of Yisra’el, with the women, and the little ones, and the sojourner who walked in their midst.