Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between you and the ark; do not go near it.”

About forty thousand armed for battle crossed over before the Lord to the plains of Jericho for war.

On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho.

When they returned to Joshua, they said, “Not all the army will have to go up against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary the whole army, for only a few people live there.”

So about three thousand went up; but they were routed by the men of Ai,

When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and there it was, hidden in his tent, with the silver underneath.

They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites and spread them out before the Lord.

Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor.

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

Joshua had taken about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.

Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai.

Kain, Gibeah and Timnah—ten towns and their villages.

Manasseh’s share consisted of ten tracts of land besides Gilead and Bashan east of the Jordan,

Division of the Rest of the Land

The whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there. The country was brought under their control,

These are the territories that Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun and the heads of the tribal clans of Israel assigned by lot at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. And so they finished dividing the land.

The rest of Kohath’s descendants were allotted ten towns from the clans of the tribes of Ephraim, Dan and half of Manasseh.

All these ten towns and their pasturelands were given to the rest of the Kohathite clans.

With him they sent ten of the chief men, one from each of the tribes of Israel, each the head of a family division among the Israelite clans.

One of you routs a thousand, because the Lord your God fights for you, just as he promised.

Buried in the Promised Land

After these things, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten.