Joshua 8:3-11

³So Joshua got up and took all the men of war up to Ai. Then Joshua chose thirty thousand men—strong, courageous men—and he sent them out at night.

⁴He commanded them, “Look, you will lie in ambush against the city, behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.

⁵I and all the men with me will approach the city, and when they come out to attack us, we will run away from them just as before.

⁶They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city. They will say, 'They are running away from us as they did the last time.' So we will run away from them.

⁷Then you come up out of your place of hiding, and you will capture the city. Yahweh your God will give it into your hand.

⁸When you capture the city, you will set it on fire. You will do this when you obey the command given in the word of Yahweh. See, I have commanded you.”

⁹Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush, and they hid between Bethel and Ai to the west of Ai. But Joshua slept that night among the people.

¹⁰Joshua got up early in the morning and got his soldiers ready, Joshua and the elders of Israel, and they attacked the people of Ai.

¹¹All the fighting men who were with him went up and approached the city. They came near the city and camped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between them and Ai.