The LORD said to Joshua, “Don’t be afraid, and don’t be dismayed. Take all the warriors with you, and arise, go up to Ai. Behold, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, with his people, his city, and his land. Jos 1:9Deu 1:21Deu 31:8Deu 7:18Jos 6:2Dan 2:37-38Isa 43:2Dan 4:35 You shall do to Ai and her king as you did to Jericho and her king, except you shall take its goods and its livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it.” Deu 20:14Jos 6:212Ch 20:22Pro 13:222Ch 13:13Deu 3:2Jdg 20:29-33Jer 17:11
So Joshua arose, with all the warriors, to go up to Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them out by night. 1Th 5:2Mat 24:39Mat 24:50Mat 25:62Pe 3:10 He commanded them, saying, “Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Don’t go very far from the city, but all of you be ready. Jdg 20:291Sa 15:21Sa 15:5Act 23:21Ecc 7:19Ecc 9:16Jdg 20:33Jdg 20:36 I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. It shall happen, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them. Jos 7:5Jdg 20:31-33Mat 10:16 They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, ‘They flee before us, like the first time.’ So we will flee before them, Ecc 8:11Ecc 9:12Exo 14:3Exo 15:9Jdg 20:32 and you shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city; for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand. Pro 21:30-312Ki 5:1Jos 8:1 It shall be, when you have seized the city, that you shall set the city on fire. You shall do this according to the LORD’s word. Behold, I have commanded you.” 2Sa 13:28Jos 1:16Jos 1:9Jdg 4:6Jos 6:24Jos 8:28
Joshua sent them out; and they went to set up the ambush, and stayed between Bethel and Ai on the west side of Ai; but Joshua stayed among the people that night. Ezr 2:28Gen 12:8Gen 32:21Jos 7:2Jos 8:12Neh 7:32 Joshua rose up early in the morning, mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. Gen 22:3Jos 3:1Jos 6:12Jos 7:16Psa 119:60 All the people, even the men of war who were with him, went up and came near, and came before the city and encamped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between him and Ai. He took about five thousand men, and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city. Jos 8:2-3 So they set the people, even all the army who was on the north of the city, and their ambush on the west of the city; and Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley. Jos 8:12Jos 8:8 When the king of Ai saw it, they hurried and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the time appointed, before the Arabah; but he didn’t know that there was an ambush against him behind the city. Mat 24:391Th 5:1-32Pe 2:3Dan 4:31Deu 1:1Ecc 9:12Isa 19:11Isa 19:13 Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness. Jos 18:12Jdg 20:36Jos 15:61Jos 16:1 All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them. They pursued Joshua, and were drawn away from the city. Jdg 20:31Ezk 38:11-22Jdg 20:36-39Jos 8:5-6Psa 9:16Rev 16:14Rev 19:19-21 There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who didn’t go out after Israel. They left the city open, and pursued Israel. Deu 2:30Isa 19:11-13Job 5:13Jos 11:20Jos 8:24-25Jos 8:3
The LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” Jos 8:26Job 15:251Sa 17:411Sa 17:451Sa 17:6Exo 14:16Exo 17:9-12Exo 8:5
Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city. The ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand and entered into the city and took it. They hurried and set the city on fire. When the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way. The people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the pursuers. Amo 2:14-16Gen 19:28Isa 34:10Job 11:20Psa 48:5-6Psa 76:5Rev 18:9Rev 19:3 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned back and killed the men of Ai. The others came out of the city against them, so they were in the middle of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side. They struck them, so that they let none of them remain or escape. Deu 7:21Th 5:3Job 20:5Jos 10:28Jos 11:11-12Jos 6:21Luk 17:26-30 They captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua. 1Sa 15:8Jos 10:17Jos 8:29Rev 19:20
When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness in which they pursued them, and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. Jos 11:10-14Jos 10:30-41Num 21:24 All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the people of Ai. Deu 20:16-18 For Joshua didn’t draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Exo 17:11-12Jos 8:18 Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city, according to the LORD’s word which he commanded Joshua. Jos 8:2Jos 11:4Mat 20:15Num 31:22Num 31:26Psa 50:10 So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day. Deu 13:162Ki 19:25Isa 17:1Isa 25:2Jer 49:2Jer 50:26Jer 9:11Jos 4:9 He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the evening. At sundown, Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised a great heap of stones on it that remains to this day. 2Sa 18:17Deu 21:22-23Jos 7:26Act 12:23Est 7:10Jos 10:26-28Jos 10:30Jos 10:33
Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, Deu 27:4-6Exo 20:24Gen 12:7-8Gen 8:20 as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses: an altar of uncut stones, on which no one had lifted up any iron. They offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings. Deu 27:5-7Exo 20:24-251Ki 18:31-32Exo 18:12Exo 24:5Jos 1:8Jos 8:34-352Ch 25:4 He wrote there on the stones a copy of Moses’ law, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel. Deu 27:2-3Deu 27:8 All Israel, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests, who carried the ark of the LORD’s covenant, the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel. Deu 11:29Deu 31:12Deu 27:11-14Deu 31:9Deu 31:25Exo 12:49Jos 24:1Jos 3:3 Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law. Neh 8:2-3Deu 31:10-12Neh 13:1Deu 27:14Deu 29:20-21Deu 30:15-20Jos 1:8Lev 26:1-46 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua didn’t read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the foreigners who were among them. Deu 31:12Neh 8:2Jer 26:2Act 21:5Deu 29:11Ezr 10:1Jol 2:16Mrk 10:14