Joshua 9:3

²they were very afraid, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty.

¹⁷The children of Israel traveled and came to their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath Jearim.

¹There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

²The king called the Gibeonites and said to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, and the children of Israel had sworn to them; and Saul sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah);

¹Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the children of Israel. No one went out, and no one came in. ²The LORD said to Joshua, “Behold, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the mighty men of valor. ³All of your men of war shall march around the city, going around the city once. You shall do this six days. ⁴Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day, you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. ⁵It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the city wall will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, every man straight in front of him.”

⁶Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the LORD’s ark.”

⁷They said to the people, “Advance! March around the city, and let the armed men pass on before the LORD’s ark.”

⁸It was so, that when Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the LORD advanced and blew the trumpets, and the ark of the LORD’s covenant followed them. ⁹The armed men went before the priests who blew the trumpets, and the ark went after them. The trumpets sounded as they went.

¹⁰Joshua commanded the people, saying, “You shall not shout nor let your voice be heard, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout.” ¹¹So he caused the LORD’s ark to go around the city, circling it once. Then they came into the camp, and stayed in the camp. ¹²Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the LORD’s ark. ¹³The seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the LORD’s ark went on continually, and blew the trumpets. The armed men went in front of them. The rear guard came after the LORD’s ark. The trumpets sounded as they went. ¹⁴The second day they marched around the city once, and returned into the camp. They did this six days.

¹⁵On the seventh day, they rose early at the dawning of the day, and marched around the city in the same way seven times. On this day only they marched around the city seven times. ¹⁶At the seventh time, when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout, for the LORD has given you the city! ¹⁷The city shall be devoted, even it and all that is in it, to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. ¹⁸But as for you, only keep yourselves from what is devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted it, you take of the devoted thing; so you would make the camp of Israel accursed and trouble it. ¹⁹But all the silver, gold, and vessels of bronze and iron are holy to the LORD. They shall come into the LORD’s treasury.”

²⁰So the people shouted and the priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight in front of him, and they took the city. ²¹They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword. ²²Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house, and bring the woman and all that she has out from there, as you swore to her.” ²³The young men who were spies went in, and brought out Rahab with her father, her mother, her brothers, and all that she had. They also brought out all of her relatives, and they set them outside of the camp of Israel. ²⁴They burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only they put the silver, the gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron into the treasury of the LORD’s house. ²⁵But Rahab the prostitute, her father’s household, and all that she had, Joshua saved alive. She lives in the middle of Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

²⁶Joshua commanded them with an oath at that time, saying, “Cursed is the man before the LORD who rises up and builds this city Jericho. With the loss of his firstborn he will lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son he will set up its gates.” ²⁷So the LORD was with Joshua; and his fame was in all the land.

¹The 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. ²You 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.”

³So 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. ⁴He 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. ⁵I 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. ⁶They 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, ⁷and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city; for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand. ⁸It 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.”

⁹Joshua 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. ¹⁰Joshua rose up early in the morning, mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. ¹¹All 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. ¹²He took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city. ¹³So 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. ¹⁴When 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. ¹⁵Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness. ¹⁶All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them. They pursued Joshua, and were drawn away from the city. ¹⁷There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who didn’t go out after Israel. They left the city open, and pursued Israel.

¹⁸The 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.

¹⁹The 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. ²⁰When 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. ²¹When 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. ²²The 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. ²³They captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua.

²⁴When 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. ²⁵All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the people of Ai. ²⁶For Joshua didn’t draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. ²⁷Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city, according to the LORD’s word which he commanded Joshua. ²⁸So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day. ²⁹He 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.

³⁰Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, ³¹as 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. ³²He wrote there on the stones a copy of Moses’ law, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel. ³³All 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. ³⁴Afterward 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. ³⁵There 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.