Joshua 8:4-17

⁴He said to them, “Listen carefully. Some of you must hide on the other side of the city. Do not go far from the city. Just be ready to attack.

⁵I and the men who are with me will march toward the city in the morning. The men in the city will come out to fight us, like they did before. Then we will turn around and start to run away from them.

⁶They will think that we are running away from them like we did before. So they will chase us away from the city. While we are running away,

⁷those of you who are hiding come out and rush into the city and capture it. Yahweh your God will enable you to conquer it.

⁸After you capture the city, burn it. Do what Yahweh has commanded us to do. Those are the orders I am giving to you.”

⁹Then Joshua prepared to send some of them to hide and wait between Ai and Bethel, which was west of Ai. But Joshua stayed with his other soldiers that night.

¹⁰Early the next morning, Joshua gathered his soldiers together. Then he and the other Israeli leaders led them up to Ai.

¹¹They all set up their tents close to Ai, just to the north of the city, where all the people of the city could see them. There was a valley between them and the city.

¹²Then Joshua chose about 5,000 men and told them to go and hide just west of the city, between Ai and Bethel.

¹³So those men did that. The main group of soldiers was north of the city, and the others were hiding west of the city. That night Joshua went down into the valley.

¹⁴When the king of Ai saw the Israeli army, he and his soldiers got up early the next morning and quickly went out of the city to fight them. They went to a place east of the city, but they did not know that some Israeli soldiers were hiding behind the city.

¹⁵Joshua and the Israeli soldiers who were with him allowed the army of Ai to push them back. They ran toward the desert.

¹⁶The men in Ai were ordered to chase after Joshua and his men. So they left the city and started to pursue the Israelis.

¹⁷All the men of Ai and the men of Bethel pursued the Israeli army. They did not leave even one man in Ai to defend it. The gates of the city were left wide open.