Joshua 8:16-27

¹⁶All the people who were in the city were called together to pursue after them. They pursued Joshua, and were drawn away from the city.

¹⁷There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who didn’t go out after Israel. They left the city open, and pursued Israel.

¹⁸The LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.

¹⁹The 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.

²⁰When 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.

²¹When 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.

²²The 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.

²³They captured the king of Ai alive, and brought him to Joshua.

²⁴When 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.

²⁵All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the people of Ai.

²⁶For Joshua didn’t draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.

²⁷Israel took for themselves only the livestock and the goods of that city, according to the LORD’s word which he commanded Joshua.