Ai Destroyed

8 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid;^(A) do not be discouraged.^(B) Take the whole army^(C) with you, and go up and attack Ai.^(D) For I have delivered^(E) into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land. ² You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder^(F) and livestock for yourselves.^(G) Set an ambush^(H) behind the city.”

³ So Joshua and the whole army moved out to attack Ai. He chose thirty thousand of his best fighting men and sent them out at night

¹⁸ Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Hold out toward Ai the javelin^(A) that is in your hand,^(B) for into your hand I will deliver the city.” So Joshua held out toward the city the javelin that was in his hand.^{(C) 19} As soon as he did this, the men in the ambush rose quickly^(D) from their position and rushed forward. They entered the city and captured it and quickly set it on fire.^(E)

²⁰ The men of Ai looked back and saw the smoke of the city rising up into the sky,^(F) 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^(G) 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.^{(H) 23} But they took the king of Ai alive^(I) and brought him to Joshua.

²⁴ When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. ²⁵ Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai.^{(J) 26} For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin^(K) until he had destroyed^[a](L) all who lived in Ai.^(M)