²Adoni-Zedek and his people were very afraid because of this. Gibeon was not a little town like Ai; it was a large city, as big as a city that had a king, and all its men were good fighters. ³So Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem sent a message to Hoham king of Hebron, Piram king of Jarmuth, Japhia king of Lachish, and Debir king of Eglon. He begged them, ⁴“Come with me and help me attack Gibeon, which has made a peace agreement with Joshua and the Israelites.”

⁵Then these five Amorite kings—the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon—gathered their armies, went to Gibeon, surrounded it, and attacked it.

⁶The Gibeonites sent this message to Joshua in his camp at Gilgal: “Don’t let us, your servants, be destroyed. Come quickly and help us! Save us! All the Amorite kings from the mountains have joined their armies and are fighting against us.”

⁷So Joshua marched out of Gilgal with his whole army, including his best fighting men. ⁸The Lord said to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid of those armies, because I will hand them over to you. None of them will be able to stand against you.”

⁹Joshua and his army marched all night from Gilgal for a surprise attack. ¹⁰The Lord confused those armies when Israel attacked, so Israel defeated them in a great victory at Gibeon. They chased them along the road going up to Beth Horon and killed men all the way to Azekah and Makkedah. ¹¹As they chased the enemy down the Beth Horon Pass to Azekah, the Lord threw large hailstones on them from the sky and killed them. More people were killed by the hailstones than by the Israelites’ swords.

¹²On the day that the Lord gave up the Amorites to the Israelites, Joshua stood before all the people of Israel and said to the Lord:

“Sun, stand still over Gibeon.

Moon, stand still over the Valley of Aijalon.”

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