The Daily Audio Bible
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16 Early the next morning, Joshua told the tribes to come and stand in front of the Lord. They came one tribe at a time. The Lord chose the tribe of Judah. 17 Then clans of the tribe of Judah came, one clan at a time. The Lord chose Zerah's clan. Families from Zerah's clan then came, one family at a time. The Lord chose Zimri's family. 18 Joshua then made each man from Zimri's family come, one by one. The Lord chose Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zimri, son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah.
19 Then Joshua said to Achan, ‘My son, tell the truth, to show that you respect the Lord, Israel's God. Tell me what you have done. Do not try to deceive me.’
20 Achan replied, ‘It is true! I have done a bad thing against the Lord, Israel's God. This is what I have done. 21 I found a beautiful coat from Babylon, and I found 200 silver coins, and a piece of gold that weighed half a kilogram. I wanted them so much that I took them for myself. I hid them in the ground in my tent. The silver coins are under the other things.’
22 So Joshua sent some men to go to Achan's tent. They ran there and they found the things that Achan had hidden. The silver coins were under the other things. 23 The men took the things out from the tent. They brought them to Joshua and all the other Israelites. They put them all on the ground in front of the Lord.
24 Then Joshua and all the people took Achan, the son of Zerah, and the silver coins, the coat, and the heavy piece of gold. They also took his sons, his daughters, and his cows, sheep and donkeys. They took all his things to Achor valley.[a] 25 Joshua said, ‘Why did you cause so much trouble to come to us? The Lord will certainly give you trouble today!’
Then all the Israelites threw stones at him until he died. They also killed his family and they burned all the bodies. 26 They put a big heap of stones over him. They are still there today. That is why the place is still called ‘Trouble Valley’. Then the Lord was not angry with his people any more.
The Israelites destroy Ai
8 Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Do not be afraid. Continue to be brave! Take the whole army with you and go to attack Ai. This time, I will give the king and all his people to you. I will also give to you the city and its land. 2 You must destroy the city and its king as you destroyed Jericho and its king. But this time you may take their valuable things and their animals for yourselves. Hide some of your men behind the city, so that they are ready to attack.’
3 So Joshua and the whole army marched towards Ai. Joshua chose 30,000 of the best soldiers and he sent some of them out at night time. 4 He said to them, ‘Listen carefully. Go and hide behind the city. Stay near to it. Be ready to attack! 5 In the morning, I will march towards the city with our other soldiers. When we get near to the city, the enemy's men will come out of the city to fight against us, as they did before. Then we will turn round and we will run away. 6 They will chase us away from the city. They will say, “The Israelites are running away from us, as they did before.” We will continue to run away from them. 7 Then you must leave the place where you have hidden. Go into the city and take it. The Lord your God will give it to you. 8 When you have taken the city, start to burn it. Do what the Lord has told you to do. Be sure that you obey my commands.’
9 Then Joshua sent the men away. They went and they hid on the west side of Ai, between Bethel and Ai. But Joshua stayed with his other soldiers that night.
10 Early the next morning, Joshua took the army to march towards Ai. He and the leaders of Israel marched in front. 11 The soldiers who were with Joshua marched up to the city. They stopped in front of it, on the north side. They put up their tents there, where there was a valley between them and the city. 12 Joshua had already sent about 5,000 men to hide on the west side of the city, between Bethel and Ai. 13 The whole Israelite army was ready to fight. Most of them were with their tents on the north side of the city. The other soldiers were hiding on the west side of the city. That night Joshua went down into the valley.
14 The king of Ai saw that Israel's army had arrived. Early the next morning, the king and his army hurried out of the city. They wanted to fight against Israel's army at the same place as before, on the hill near the Jordan Valley. But the king of Ai did not know that some Israelite soldiers were hiding behind the city. 15 Joshua and his army let the men of Ai chase after them. They pretended to be afraid. They ran towards the desert. 16 The king told all the men who remained in the city to chase the Israelites. So they continued to chase after them, far away from their city. 17 No men remained in Ai or Bethel. They all chased after the Israelites. There was nobody left to keep the city safe.
18 Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Hold out the spear that is in your hand. Point it towards Ai. I am now giving the city to you.’
So Joshua held out his spear towards Ai.
19 As soon as he did this, the men who were hiding behind the city came out quickly. They ran into the city and they took it. Immediately, they used fire to burn it. 20 The men of Ai looked behind them and they saw smoke in the sky above the city. But they could do nothing to escape. The Israelites who had been running away from them now turned round to fight them. 21 Joshua and his army also saw the smoke. They knew that the other group of soldiers had taken the city. So they turned round and began to attack the men of Ai. 22 Now the Israelites who had gone into the city also came out to fight. So the men of Ai were in between the two groups of Israelite soldiers. The Israelites killed all the men of Ai. 23 Only the king of Ai was still alive. They caught him and they took him to Joshua.
24 The Israelites killed all the men who had lived in Ai. They killed them when they chased them towards the desert. Then the Israelite soldiers went back to Ai and they killed everyone there. 25 All the people of Ai died on that day. That was 12,000 men and women. 26 Joshua continued to point his spear at Ai, until his army had killed every person who lived there. 27 But the Israelites took the valuable things and the animals for themselves. That was what the Lord had told Joshua. 28 Joshua burned the city and he broke down its walls. It is still like that today. 29 He hanged the king of Ai on a tree. He left his body there until evening. At sunset, Joshua told his men to cut the body down. They threw it on the ground outside the city's gate. They covered it with a heap of stones. Those stones are still there today.
Joshua reads God's law to the people
30 Then Joshua built an altar on Ebal mountain, to worship the Lord, Israel's God. 31 He built it as the Lord's servant, Moses, had told the Israelites to do. Moses had written this on the scroll of God's laws. The law said, ‘You must build an altar with whole stones that you have not cut. Do not use any iron tools on them.’[b] They made burnt offerings on the altar to worship the Lord. They also made sacrifices as friendship offerings. 32 The Israelites watched Joshua as he made a copy of God's Law on the stones. This was the Law that Moses had written. 33 All the Israelites stood on each side of the Covenant Box, with their faces towards the priests who carried it. The leaders, officers, and judges were there, as well as foreign people who lived with the Israelites. Half the people stood with their backs to Mount Gerizim. The other half stood with their backs to Mount Ebal. Moses had told them to stand like that when the Lord wanted to bless them.[c] 34 Then Joshua read the whole Law aloud to them. He read the blessings and the curses, as they are written on the scroll of the Law. 35 Joshua read aloud every command that Moses had written. He read it to all the Israelite people. The women, children and the foreign people who lived with them also listened.[d]
The Gibeonites deceive Joshua
9 All the kings who lived west of the Jordan River heard about what had happened at Ai. They were the kings who ruled in the hill country, in the low hills in the west, and all the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, as far as Lebanon. They were the kings of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 2 They joined together to fight against Joshua and the Israelites.
A story about a man who thought carefully
16 Jesus told another story to his disciples: ‘A rich man had a servant who worked for him. The servant took care of the money and things that belonged to the man. Then some people told the rich man that his servant was wasting his master's things. 2 So the master sent someone to bring his servant to him. He said to his servant, “I am hearing bad stories about you. So write down everything that you have done with my money and my things. Then you must stop working for me.”
3 “I must think about what I can do,” the servant said to himself. “My master will not let me work for him any longer. I am not strong enough to dig in the ground. I would be ashamed to ask other people for money. 4 I must stop working for my master. But I know what I can do so that people will then accept me into their homes.”
5 Many people had a debt that they had not paid back to the master. So the servant told those people to come to him. He asked the first man, “How big is your debt to my master?” 6 The man replied, “I have to give him 100 barrels of oil.”[a] The servant said to him, “Here is the paper with your debt written down on it. Take the paper. Sit down now and write 50 barrels there.”[b]
7 He asked the next man, “How big is your debt to my master?” The man replied, “I have to give him 100 baskets of wheat.” The servant replied, “Here is the paper with your debt written down on it. Take the paper and write 80 baskets.” ’[c]
8 Jesus then said, ‘The servant in the story was not honest. But his master spoke well about what he had done. It would help the servant later in his life. People that do not obey God think carefully. They know how to do well with people who are like themselves. But people who live in God's light often think less carefully. 9 So I tell you this. People may get money in wrong ways. But you should use it to do good to those who need help. Then they will be your friends. You will die, one day. Then those people will be happy to see you in that place where people live for all time.
10 If you can trust a person with a very small thing, you can also trust him with bigger things. And if you cannot trust a person with a very small thing, you cannot trust him with big things. 11 So if people cannot trust you with money in this world, nobody will trust you with really valuable things. 12 And if people cannot trust you with other people's things, nobody will give you things for yourself.
13 A slave cannot work for two masters at the same time. Maybe he will hate one of the masters, but he will love the other one. Or he will work well for one master, but he will think bad things about the other one. God and money are like different masters. You cannot work for both of them.’
14 The Pharisees heard all this. They loved money very much, so they laughed at Jesus. They said to him, ‘You are wrong.’ 15 Jesus replied, ‘You are happy when people like you. You want them to think that you are good people. But God sees inside you. He knows what you are thinking. The things that many people think are valuable are not valuable to God. He hates those things.’[d]
16 Jesus then said, ‘The books of God's Law and God's prophets spoke God's message until John the Baptist came. Since then, God's servants tell people the good news about the kingdom of God. Everyone is now trying very much to get into that kingdom. 17 But this does not mean that anyone can destroy God's Law. One day, the earth and the sky will finish. But until that time, nobody can remove even a small thing from God's Law.
18 A man must not send his wife away and then marry another woman. If he does that, it is the same as if he had sex with another man's wife. Also, if a woman has left her husband, another man must not marry her. That is the same as if he had sex with another man's wife.’
This is a psalm that Asaph wrote.
God and the gods[a]
82 God calls the powerful rulers to meet in heaven.
He sits on his throne to judge them.
2 He asks them, ‘How long will you continue to judge people
in a way that is not fair?
How long will you say that wicked people are right?
Selah.
3 You must help poor people and those with no family
to receive justice.
Help those who have pain and trouble
to receive the help that they need.
4 Rescue weak and helpless people,
so that evil people cannot hurt them.
5 The powerful leaders know nothing
and they understand nothing.
They walk about in a dark place.
At the same time the foundation of the earth shakes![b]
6 I said, “You are gods.
You are all sons of the Most High God.
7 But you will die, as all people die.
You will come to an end, like all other rulers.” ’[c]
8 God, now do something!
Judge all the nations of the earth.
For they all belong to you.
2 If you say kind words, you will eat good things.
But wicked people only want to be cruel.
3 Someone who thinks before he speaks will keep his life safe.
But someone who talks too much will destroy himself.
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