Joshua 8:18–35

18 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “aStretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” So Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.

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

20 When the men of Ai turned 1back 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.

21 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 1slew the men of Ai.

22 1The others came out from the city to encounter them, so that they were trapped in the midst of Israel, 2some on this side and some on that side; and they 3slew them until ano one was left 4of those who survived or escaped.

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

24 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 were 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.

25 aAll who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000—all the 1people of Ai.

26 For Joshua adid not withdraw his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had 1utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.

27 aIsrael took only the cattle and the spoil of that city as plunder for themselves, according to the word of the Lord which He had commanded Joshua.

28 So Joshua burned Ai and made it aa heap forever, a desolation until this day.

29 aHe hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening; and at sunset Joshua gave command and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate, and raised over it a great heap of stones that stands to this day.

30 Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, in aMount Ebal,

31 just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, aan altar of uncut stones on which no man had wielded an iron tool; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, and sacrificed peace offerings.

32 He awrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which 1he had written, in the presence of the sons of Israel.

33 aAll Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, the stranger as well as the native. Half of them stood in front of bMount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had given command at first to bless the people of Israel.

34 Then afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in athe book of the law.

35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel awith the women and the little ones and the strangers who were 1living among them.