Study Desk

Then the LORD said to Joshua, "^(C1)Reach out with the sword that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will hand it over to you." So Joshua reached out with the sword that was in his hand toward the city.

Then the men in ambush rose quickly from their place, and when he had reached out with his hand, they ran and entered the city and captured it, and they quickly set the city on fire.

When the men of Ai turned ^(F1)back and looked, behold, the smoke of the city ascended to the sky, and they had no place to flee this way or that, for the people who had been fleeing to the wilderness turned against the pursuers.

When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that the smoke of the city ascended, they turned back and ^(F1)killed the men of Ai.

^(F1)The others came out from the city to confront them, so that they were trapped in the midst of Israel, ^(F2)some on this side and some on that side; and they ^(F3)killed them until there was not ^(C1)one ^(F4)left who escaped or survived.

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

Now when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them had fallen by the edge of the sword until they were destroyed, then all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword.

So ^(C1)all who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand—all the ^(F1)people of Ai.

For Joshua ^(C1)did not withdraw his hand with which he reached out with the sword until he had ^(F1)utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.

^(C1)Israel took only the cattle and the spoils of that city as plunder for themselves, in accordance with the word of the LORD which He had commanded Joshua.

So Joshua burned Ai and made it ^(C1)a refuse heap forever, a desolation until this day.

And ^(C1)he hanged the king of Ai on ^(F1)a tree until evening; but at sunset Joshua gave the command and they took his body down from ^(F1)the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate, and erected over it a large heap of stones that stands to this day.