Conquest of Canaan

Twelve thousand men and women fell that day, everyone in 'Ai.

For Y'hoshua did not withdraw his hand, which he had used to point the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of 'Ai.

Only the livestock and the spoil of that city did Isra'el take as booty for themselves, in keeping with the order ADONAI had given Y'hoshua.

So Y'hoshua burned down 'Ai and turned it into a tel forever, so that it remains a ruin to this day.

The king of 'Ai he hanged on a tree until evening; at sundown Y'hoshua gave an order, so they took his carcass down from the tree, threw it at the entrance of the city gate and piled on it a big heap of stones, which is there to this day.

Then Y'hoshua built an altar to ADONAI, the God of Isra'el, on Mount 'Eival,

as Moshe the servant of ADONAI had ordered the people of Isra'el to do (this is written in the book of the Torah of Moshe), an altar of uncut stones that no one had touched with an iron tool. On it they offered burnt offerings to ADONAI and sacrificed peace offerings.

He wrote there on the stones a copy of the Torah of Moshe, inscribing it in the presence of the people of Isra'el.

Then all Isra'el, including their leaders, officials and judges, stood on either side of the ark in front of the cohanim, who were L'vi'im and who carried the ark for the covenant of ADONAI. The foreigners were there along with the citizens. Half of the people were in front of Mount G'rizim and half of them in front of Mount 'Eival, as Moshe the servant of ADONAI had ordered them earlier in connection with blessing the people of Isra'el.

After this, he read all the words of the Torah, the blessing and the curse, according to everything written in the book of the Torah.

There was not a word of everything Moshe had ordered that Y'hoshua did not read before all Isra'el assembled, including the women, the little ones and the foreigners living with them.

When all the kings on the west side of the Yarden in the hills, in the Sh'felah and all along the shore of the Great Sea that fronts the L'vanon - the Hitti, Emori, Kena'ani, P'rizi, Hivi and Y'vusi - heard what had happened,

they joined forces to fight together against Y'hoshua and Isra'el.

But when the inhabitants of Giv'ah heard what Y'hoshua had done to Yericho and 'Ai,

they developed a clever deception: they made themselves look as if they had been on a long journey by putting old sacks on their donkeys and taking used wineskins that had burst and been mended back together.

They put old, patched sandals on their feet and dressed in worn-out clothes; and took as provisions nothing but dried-up bread that was crumbling to pieces.

Then they went to Y'hoshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the men of Isra'el, "We have come from a country far away. Now, make a covenant with us."

The men of Isra'el said to the Hivi, "How do we know that you don't live here among us? If you do, we don't want to make a covenant with you."

But they answered Y'hoshua, "We are your servants." Y'hoshua asked, "Who are you, and where do you come from?"

They answered him, "Your servants have come from a very distant country because of the reputation of ADONAI your God. We have heard reports about him - everything he did in Egypt,

and everything he did to the two kings of the Emori across the Yarden, Sichon king of Heshbon and 'Og king of Bashan at 'Ashtarot.

So our leaders and all the people living in our country said to us, "Take provisions with you for the journey, go to meet them, and say to them, 'We are your servants, and now make a covenant with us.'

Here is the bread which we took for our provisions. It was still warm when we took it out of our homes the day we left to come to you. Now look at it! It's dry and turned to crumbs!

And these wineskins were new when we filled them, but look, now they're torn. Likewise these clothes of ours and our shoes are worn out because of the very long journey."

The men sampled some of their food but didn't seek the advice of ADONAI,