Joshua 8:21-29

New Living Translation

²¹ When Joshua and all the other Israelites saw that the ambush had succeeded and that smoke was rising from the town, they turned and attacked the men of Ai. ²² Meanwhile, the Israelites who were inside the town came out and attacked the enemy from the rear. So the men of Ai were caught in the middle, with Israelite fighters on both sides. Israel attacked them, and not a single person survived or escaped. ²³ Only the king of Ai was taken alive and brought to Joshua.

²⁴ When the Israelite army finished chasing and killing all the men of Ai in the open fields, they went back and finished off everyone inside. ²⁵ So the entire population of Ai, including men and women, was wiped out that day—12,000 in all. ²⁶ For Joshua kept holding out his spear until everyone who had lived in Ai was completely destroyed.^{[a] 27} Only the livestock and the treasures of the town were not destroyed, for the Israelites kept these as plunder for themselves, as the Lord had commanded Joshua. ²⁸ So Joshua burned the town of Ai,^[b] and it became a permanent mound of ruins, desolate to this very day.

²⁹ Joshua impaled the king of Ai on a sharpened pole and left him there until evening. At sunset the Israelites took down the body, as Joshua commanded, and threw it in front of the town gate. They piled a great heap of stones over him that can still be seen today.