Joshua 8:21-35

Legacy Standard Bible

²¹ But Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that the smoke of the city ascended. So they turned back and struck down the men of Ai. ^22 [a]And the others came out from the city to meet them, so that they were trapped in the midst of Israel, ^[b]some on this side and some on that side; and they struck them down until ^[c]there was ^(A)no one remaining for him who survived or escaped. ²³ But they seized the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

²⁴ Now it happened that when Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them fell by the edge of the sword until they were completely destroyed, then all Israel turned back to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. ^25 (B)So all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000—all the ^[d]people of Ai. ²⁶ For Joshua ^(C)did not withdraw his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted to destruction all the inhabitants of Ai. ^27 (D)Israel took only the cattle and the spoil of that city as plunder for themselves, according to the word of Yahweh which He had commanded Joshua. ²⁸ So Joshua burned Ai and made it ^(E)a heap forever, a desolation until this day. ^29 (F)And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening; and at sunset Joshua gave a command, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the city gate and raised over it a great heap of stones that stands to this day.

³⁰ Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on ^(G)Mount Ebal, ³¹ just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, ^(H)an altar of uncut stones on which no man had wielded an iron tool; and they offered burnt offerings on it to Yahweh and sacrificed peace offerings. ³² And he ^(I)wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which ^[e]he had written, in the presence of the sons of Israel. ^33 (J)And all Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, the sojourner as well as the native. Half of them stood in front of ^(K)Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of Yahweh had given a command at first to bless the people of Israel. ³⁴ Then afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in ^(L)the book of the law. ³⁵ There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel ^(M)with the women and the little ones and the sojourners who were ^[f]going among them.