rsv Joshua:8:2-22 SEEK
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and you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king ;
only its spoil and its cattle you shall take as booty for yourselves ;
lay an ambush against the city ,
behind it ."
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So Joshua arose ,
and all the fighting men ,
to go up to Ai ;
and Joshua chose thirty thousand mighty men of valor ,
and sent them forth by night .
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And he commanded them , "
Behold ,
you shall lie in ambush against the city ,
behind it ;
do not go very far from the city ,
but hold yourselves all in readiness ;
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and I ,
and all the people who are with me ,
will approach the city .
And when they come out against us ,
as before ,
we shall flee before them ;
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and they will come out after us ,
till we have drawn them away from the city ;
for they will say , `
They are fleeing from us ,
as before .'
So we will flee from them ;
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then you shall rise up from the ambush ,
and seize the city ;
for the LORD your God will give it into your hand .
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And when you have taken the city ,
you shall set the city on fire ,
doing as the LORD has bidden ;
see ,
I have commanded you ."
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So Joshua sent them forth ;
and they went to the place of ambush ,
and lay between Bethel and Ai ,
to the west of Ai ;
but Joshua spent that night among the people .
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And Joshua arose early in the morning and mustered the people ,
and went up ,
with the elders of Israel ,
before the people to Ai .
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And all the fighting men who were with him went up ,
and drew near before the city ,
and encamped on the north side of Ai ,
with a ravine between them and Ai .
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And he took about five thousand men ,
and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai ,
to the west of the city .
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So they stationed the forces ,
the main encampment which was north of the city and its rear guard west of the city .
But Joshua spent that night in the valley .
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And when the king of Ai saw this he and all his people ,
the men of the city ,
made haste and went out early to the descent toward the Arabah to meet Israel in battle ;
but he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city .
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And Joshua and all Israel made a pretense of being beaten before them ,
and fled in the direction of the wilderness .
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So all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them ,
and as they pursued Joshua they were drawn away from the city .
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There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel ,
who did not go out after Israel ;
they left the city open ,
and pursued Israel .
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Then the LORD said to Joshua , "
Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai ;
for I will give it into your hand ."
And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city .
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And the ambush rose quickly out of their place ,
and as soon as he had stretched out his hand ,
they ran and entered the city and took it ;
and they made haste to set the city on fire .
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So when the men of Ai looked back ,
behold ,
the smoke of the city went up to heaven ;
and they had no power to flee this way or that ,
for the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers .
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And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city ,
and that the smoke of the city went up ,
then they turned back and smote the men of Ai .
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And the others came forth from the city against them ;
so they were in the midst of Israel ,
some on this side ,
and some on that side ;
and Israel smote them ,
until there was left none that survived or escaped .