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¹ And Yahweh said to Joshua, Don't be afraid, neither be dismayed: take all the people of war with you, and arise, 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 her king as you did to Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, you shall take for a prey to yourselves: set yourself an ambush for the city behind it.

³ So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai: and Joshua chose out thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them forth by night.⁴ And he commanded them, saying, Look, 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:⁵ and I, and all the people that are with me, will approach to the city. And it shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them;⁶ and they will come out after us, until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, They flee before us, as at the first: so we will flee before them;⁷ and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city: for Yahweh your God will deliver it into your hand.⁸ And it shall be, when you have seized on the city, that you shall set the city on fire; according to the word of Yahweh you shall do: see, I have commanded you.⁹ And Joshua sent them forth; and they went to the ambush, and abode between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua lodged that night among the people.

¹⁸ And Yahweh said to Joshua, Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai; for I will give it into your hand. And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.¹⁹ And [those in] 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; and they hurried and set the city on fire.²⁰ And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, look, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way: and the people that fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers.²¹ And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai.²² And the others came forth out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.

²³ And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.²⁴ And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they pursued them, and they were all fallen by the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all Israel returned to Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword.²⁵ And all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.²⁶ For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had completely destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.²⁷ Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for prey to themselves, according to the word of Yahweh which he commanded Joshua.²⁸ So Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day.²⁹ And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until evening: and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree, and cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised thereon a great heap of stones, to this day.

³⁰ Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, in mount Ebal,³¹ as Moses the slave of Yahweh commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, on which no man had lifted up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt-offerings to Yahweh, and sacrificed peace-offerings.³² And he wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote, in the presence of the sons of Israel.³³ And all Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on this side of the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, that bore the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, as well the sojourner as the homeborn; half of them in front of mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of mount Ebal; as Moses the slave of Yahweh had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.³⁴ And 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.³⁵ There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners that were among them.