Conquest of Canaan

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

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

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

So Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day.

He hanged the king of Ai on a tree until the evening, and at the sundown Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree, and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised a great heap of stones on it that remains to this day.

Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal,

as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the scroll of the Torah of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, on which no man had lifted up any iron. They offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings.

He wrote there on the stones a copy of the Torah of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.

All Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on this side of the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, who carried the ark of the LORD’s covenant, the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.

Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the scroll of the Torah.

There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua didn’t read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the foreigners who were among them.

When all the kings who were beyond the Jordan, in the hill country, and in the lowland, and on all the shore of the great sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard of it

they gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord.

But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai,

they also resorted to a ruse, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks on their donkeys, and wine skins, old and torn and bound up,

and old and patched shoes on their feet, and wore old garments. All the bread of their provision was dry and moldy.

They went to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal, and said to him, and to the men of Israel, “We have come from a far country. Now therefore make a covenant with us.”

The men of Israel said to the Hivites, “What if you live among us. How could we make a covenant with you?”

They said to Joshua, “We are your servants.” Joshua said to them, “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

They said to him, “Your servants have come from a very far country because of the name of the LORD your God; for we have heard of his fame, all that he did in Egypt,

and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon king of Heshbon and to Og king of Bashan, who was at Ashtaroth.

Our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us, saying, ‘Take provision in your hand for the journey, and go to meet them, and tell them, “We are your servants. Now make a covenant with us.”’

This our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses on the day we went out to go to you; but now, behold, it is dry, and has become moldy.

These wine skins, which we filled, were new; and behold, they are torn. These our garments and our shoes have become old because of the very long journey.”

The men sampled their provisions, and didn’t ask counsel from the mouth of the LORD.