²⁴ But when the Moabites came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and fought them until they fled. And the Israelites invaded the land and slaughtered the Moabites.

³ While people are saying, “Peace and safety,”^(A) destruction will come on them suddenly,^(B) as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.^(C)

⁴ But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness^(D) so that this day should surprise you like a thief.^(E)

⁴⁰ But when the column of smoke began to rise from the city, the Benjamites turned and saw the whole city going up in smoke.^{(A) 41} Then the Israelites counterattacked,^(B) and the Benjamites were terrified, because they realized that disaster had come^(C) on them. ⁴² So they fled before the Israelites in the direction of the wilderness, but they could not escape the battle. And the Israelites who came out of the towns cut them down there. ⁴³ They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them and easily^[a] overran them in the vicinity of Gibeah on the east. ⁴⁴ Eighteen thousand Benjamites fell, all of them valiant fighters.^{(D) 45} As they turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon,^(E) the Israelites cut down five thousand men along the roads. They kept pressing after the Benjamites as far as Gidom and struck down two thousand more.

⁴⁶ On that day twenty-five thousand Benjamite^(F) swordsmen fell, all of them valiant fighters.

²⁰ The men of Ai looked back and saw the smoke of the city rising up into the sky,^(A) but they had no chance to escape in any direction; the Israelites who had been fleeing toward the wilderness had turned back against their pursuers. ²¹ For when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that smoke was going up from it, they turned around^(B) and attacked the men of Ai. ²² Those in the ambush also came out of the city against them, so that they were caught in the middle, with Israelites on both sides. Israel cut them down, leaving them neither survivors nor fugitives.^(C)