Ai Destroyed

8 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t give up. Lead all your fighting men to Ai.* I will help you defeat the king of Ai. I am giving you his people, his city, and his land. ²You will do to Ai and its king the same thing you did to Jericho and its king. Only this time you can take all the wealth and animals and keep it for yourselves. You will share the wealth with your people. Now, tell some of your soldiers to hide behind the city.” ³So Joshua led his whole army toward Ai.* Then Joshua chose 30,000 of his best fighting men. He sent these men out at night. ⁴Joshua gave them this command: “Listen carefully to what I tell you. You must hide in the area behind the city. Wait for the time to attack. Don’t go far from the city. Continue to watch and be ready. ⁵I will lead the men with me to march toward the city. The men in the city will come out to fight against us. We will turn and run away from them , like we did before. ⁶Those men will chase us away from the city. They will think that we are running away from them like we did before. So we will run away. ⁷Then you should come out of your hiding place and take control of the city. The Lord your God will give you the power to win. ⁸“You must do what the Lord says. Watch me and I will give you the command to attack the city. Take control of the city, and then burn it.” ⁹Then Joshua sent those men to their hiding place and waited. They went to a place between Bethel and Ai. This was to the west of Ai. And Joshua stayed the night with his people. ¹⁰Early the next morning Joshua gathered the men together. Then Joshua and the leaders of Israel led the men to Ai. ¹¹All of the soldiers that were with Joshua marched to Ai. They stopped in front of the city. The army made its camp north of the city. There was a valley between the army and Ai. ¹²Then Joshua chose about 5,000 men. Joshua sent these men to hide in the area west of the city, between Bethel and Ai. ¹³So Joshua had prepared his men for the fight. The main camp was north of the city. The other men were hiding to the west. That night Joshua went down into the valley. ¹⁴Later, the king of Ai saw the army of Israel. The king and his people hurried out to fight the army of Israel. The king of Ai went out the east side of the city toward the Jordan Valley, so he did not see the soldiers hiding behind the city. ¹⁵Joshua and all the men of Israel let the army of Ai push them back. Joshua and his men began running east toward the desert. ¹⁶The people in the city began shouting and started chasing Joshua and his men. All the people left the city. ¹⁷All the people of Ai and Bethel chased the army of Israel. The city was left open—no one stayed to protect the city. ¹⁸Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Hold your spear toward the city of Ai. I will give you that city.” So Joshua held his spear toward the city of Ai. ¹⁹The men of Israel that were hiding saw this. They quickly came out from their hiding place and hurried toward the city. They entered the city and took control of it. Then the soldiers started fires to burn the city. ²⁰The men from Ai looked back and saw their city burning. They saw the smoke rising into the sky. So they lost their strength and courage. They quit chasing the men of Israel. The men from Israel stopped running away. They turned and went to fight the men from Ai. There was no safe place for the men from Ai to run to. ²¹Joshua and his men saw that his army had taken control of the city. They saw the smoke rising from the city. This was when they stopped running away, turned and ran toward the men of Ai to fight them. ²²Then the men that had hid themselves came out of the city to help with the fight. The army of Israel was on both sides of the men of Ai—the men of Ai were trapped. Israel defeated them. They fought until none of the men from Ai were left alive—none of the enemy escaped. ²³But the king of Ai was left alive. Joshua’s men brought him to Joshua.

A Review of the Fighting

²⁴During the fighting, the army of Israel chased the men from Ai into the fields and into the desert. So the army of Israel finished killing all the men from Ai in the fields and in the desert. Then the men of Israel went back to Ai and killed all the people that were still alive in the city. ²⁵All the people of Ai died that day. There were 12,000 men and women. ²⁶Joshua had held his spear toward Ai as a sign to his people to destroy the city. And Joshua did not stop until all the people of Ai were destroyed. ²⁷The people of Israel kept the animals and other things from the city for themselves. This is what the Lord said they could do when he gave Joshua the commands. ²⁸Then Joshua burned the city of Ai.* That city became an empty pile of rocks. It is still like that today. ²⁹Joshua hanged the king of Ai on a tree. He left him hanging on the tree until evening. At sunset, Joshua told his men to take the king’s body down from the tree. They threw his body down at the city gate. Then they covered the body with many rocks. That pile of rocks is still there today.

Reading the Blessings and Curses

³⁰Then Joshua built an altar for the Lord, the God of Israel. He built the altar on Mount Ebal. ³¹The Lord’s servant Moses told the people of Israel how to build altars. So Joshua built the altar the way it was explained in the Book of the Law* of Moses. The altar was made from stones that were not cut. No tool had ever been used on those stones. They offered burnt offerings to the Lord on that altar. They also gave fellowship offerings. ³²In that place Joshua wrote the Law* of Moses on stones. He did this for all the people of Israel to see. ³³The elders (leaders), officers, judges, and all the people of Israel were standing around the Holy Box. They were standing in front of the Levite priests who carried the Holy Box for the Lord’s Agreement. The people of Israel and the other people with them were all standing there. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Ebal and the other half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim. The Lord’s servant Moses had told the people to do this. Moses told them to do this for this blessing. ³⁴Then Joshua read all the words from the law. Joshua read the blessings and the curses. He read everything the way it was written in the Book of the Law.* ³⁵All the people of Israel were gathered together there. All the women and children and all the foreigners that lived with the people of Israel were there. And Joshua read every command that Moses had given.

Ai See Josh. 7:2. The name of this town means “the ruins.” Law Or “Teachings”

Gibeonites Trick Joshua

9 All the kings west of the Jordan River heard about these things. These were the kings of the Hittite people, the Amorite people, the Canaanite people, the Perizzite people, the Hivite people, and the Jebusite people. They lived in the hill country and in the plains. They also lived along the sea coast of the Mediterranean Sea as far as Lebanon. ²All these kings came together. They made plans to fight against Joshua and the people of Israel. ³The people from the city of Gibeon heard about the way Joshua had defeated Jericho and Ai. ⁴So those people decided to try to fool the people of Israel. This was their plan: They gathered together old wineskins* that were cracked and broken. They put these old wine skins on the backs of their animals. They put old pieces of cloth on their animals to look like they had traveled from far away. ⁵The men put old shoes on their feet. The men wore old clothes. The men found some old bread that was dry and moldy. So the men looked like they had traveled from a faraway place. ⁶Then the men went to the camp of the people of Israel. This camp was near Gilgal. The men went to Joshua and said to him, “We have traveled from a faraway country. We want to make a peace agreement with you.” ⁷The men of Israel said to these Hivite men, “Maybe you are trying to trick us. Maybe you live near us. We can’t make a peace agreement with you until we know where you are from.” ⁸The Hivite men said to Joshua, “We are your servants.” But Joshua asked, “Who are you? Where do you come from?” ⁹The men answered, “We are your servants. We have come from a faraway country. We came because we heard of the great power of the Lord your God. We heard about the things he did. We heard about everything he did in Egypt. ¹⁰And we heard that he defeated the two kings of the Amorite people east of the Jordan River. This was Sihon, king of Heshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, in the land of Ashtaroth. ¹¹So our elders (leaders) and our people said to us, ‘Take enough food for your journey. Go and meet with the people of Israel. Tell them, “We are your servants. Make a peace agreement with us.”’ ¹²“See our bread! When we left home it was warm and fresh. But now you can see that it is dry and old. ¹³See our wineskins! When we left home they were new and filled with wine. Now you can see that they are cracked and old. See our clothes and sandals! You can see that the long journey has almost destroyed the things we wear.” ¹⁴The men of Israel wanted to know if these men were telling the truth. So they tasted the bread—but they did not ask the Lord what they should do. ¹⁵Joshua agreed to make peace with them. He agreed to let them live. The leaders of Israel agreed with this promise of Joshua. ¹⁶Three days later, the people of Israel learned that those men lived very near their camp. ¹⁷So the people of Israel went to the place where those men lived. On the third day the people of Israel came to the cities of Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath Jearim. ¹⁸But the army of Israel did not try to fight against those cities. They had made a peace agreement with those people. They had made a promise to the people before the Lord, the God of Israel. All the people complained against the leaders that made the agreement. ¹⁹But the leaders answered, “We have given our promise. We promised before the Lord, the God of Israel. We cannot fight against them now. ²⁰This is what we must do. We must let them live. We cannot hurt them or God will be angry at us because we broke the promise we made to them. ²¹So let them live. But they will be our servants. They will cut wood for us and carry water for all of our people.” So the leaders did not break their promise of peace to those people. ²²Joshua called the Gibeonite people. He said, “Why did you lie to us? Your land was near our camp. But you told us you were from a faraway country. ²³Now, your people will have many troubles. All of your people will be slaves—they will have to cut wood and carry water for the house of God.*” ²⁴The Gibeonite people answered, “We lied to you because we were afraid you would kill us. We heard that God commanded his servant Moses to give you all of this land. And God told you to kill all the people that lived in this land. That is why we lied to you. ²⁵Now we are your servants. You can do whatever you think is right.” ²⁶So the people of Gibeon became slaves. But Joshua let them live. Joshua did not allow the people of Israel to kill them. ²⁷Joshua made the people of Gibeon become slaves of the people of Israel. They cut wood and carried water for the people of Israel and for the altar of the Lord—wherever the Lord chose it to be. Those people are still slaves today.

wineskins A bottle made from the skin of an animal and used for storing wine. house of God This might mean the “family of God” (Israel), or it might be the Holy Tent, or the temple.