Daily Text and Bible Reading: Tuesday, March 10 [Press play below]

8.1 Then Jehovah said to Joshua: “Do not be afraid or be terrified. Take with you all the fighting men and go up against Ai. See, I have handed over to you the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.
8.2 Do to Ai and to its king just as you did to Jericho and its king, except you may plunder its spoil and its livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.”
8.3 So Joshua and all the fighting men went up against Ai. Joshua chose 30,000 mighty warriors and sent them off by night.
8.4 He gave them this command: “See, you are to lie in ambush behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, and all of you be ready.
8.5 I and all the people with me will approach the city, and when they come out against us as before, we will retreat from them.
8.6 When they come out after us, we will draw them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are retreating from us just as before.’ And we will retreat from them.
8.7 Then you should rise up from the ambush and capture the city; Jehovah your God will hand it over to you.
8.8 As soon as you have seized the city, you should set it on fire. You should do according to Jehovah’s word. See, I have given you your orders.”
8.9 Then Joshua sent them out, and they marched to the place of ambush; they took a position between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai, while Joshua spent that night with the people.
8.10 After Joshua rose up early in the morning and gathered the troops, he and the elders of Israel led them to Ai.
8.11 All the fighting men who were with him marched up and advanced to the front of the city. They camped to the north of Ai, with the valley between them and Ai.
8.12 In the meantime, he had taken about 5,000 men and had set them as an ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.
8.13 So the people set the main camp to the north of the city and the rear guard west of the city, and Joshua went that night into the middle of the valley.
8.14 And as soon as the king of Ai saw this, he and the men of the city hurried out early in the morning to meet Israel in battle at a certain place overlooking the desert plain. But he did not know that there was an ambush set against him to the rear of the city.
8.15 When the men of Ai attacked, Joshua and all Israel fled along the road in the direction of the wilderness.
8.16 Then all the people who were in the city were summoned to pursue them; and as they pursued Joshua they were drawn away from the city.
8.17 Not a man was remaining in Ai and Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city wide open and pursued Israel.
8.18 Jehovah now said to Joshua: “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for into your hand I will give it.” So Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
8.19 The moment he stretched out his hand, the ambush rose up quickly from its place and ran into the city and captured it. They immediately set the city on fire.
8.20 When the men of Ai turned around, they saw the smoke of the city rising to the sky, and they had no strength to flee in any direction. Then the people who had been fleeing toward the wilderness turned on their pursuers.
8.21 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city and saw the smoke of the city rising, they turned around and attacked the men of Ai.
8.22 And the others came out of the city to meet them, so that the men of Ai were trapped in the middle, with some Israelites on this side and some on that side, and they struck them down until there was not one survivor or escapee remaining.
8.23 But they caught the king of Ai alive and brought him before Joshua.
8.24 After Israel finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they had pursued them, and every last one of them had fallen by the sword, then all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the sword.
8.25 All those who fell on that day, from man to woman, amounted to 12,000, all the people of Ai.
8.26 Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he had stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction.
8.27 However, Israel took the livestock and the spoil of that city for themselves, according to the orders that Jehovah had given to Joshua.
8.28 Then Joshua burned Ai and reduced it to a permanent mound of ruins, as it remains to this day.
8.29 He hung the king of Ai on a stake until the evening, and as the sun was about to set, Joshua gave the order to take his dead body down from the stake. Then they pitched it at the entrance of the city gate and raised up a great pile of stones over him, which is there to this day.
8.30 It was then that Joshua built an altar on Mount Ebal to Jehovah the God of Israel,
8.31 just as Moses the servant of Jehovah had commanded the Israelites and as it is written in the book of the Law of Moses: “An altar of whole stones on which no iron tool has been wielded.” On it they offered up burnt offerings to Jehovah as well as communion sacrifices.
8.32 Then he wrote there on the stones a copy of the Law that Moses had written before the Israelites.
8.33 All Israel, their elders, the officers, and their judges were standing on both sides of the Ark in front of the Levitical priests who were carrying the ark of the covenant of Jehovah. The foreign residents were there as well as the natives. Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim, and the other half in front of Mount Ebal (just as Moses the servant of Jehovah had previously commanded), to bless the people of Israel.
8.34 After this he read aloud all the words of the Law, the blessings and the curses, according to all that is written in the book of the Law.
8.35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read aloud in front of all the congregation of Israel, including the women and children and the foreign residents who were living among them.
9.1 When all the kings who were on the west side of the Jordan heard what had happened, those in the mountainous region, in the Shephelah, along the entire coast of the Great Sea, and in front of Lebanon—the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites—
9.2 they formed an alliance to fight against Joshua and Israel.
9.3 The inhabitants of Gibeon also heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai.
9.4 So they acted shrewdly and put provisions into worn-out sacks on their donkeys, along with worn-out wineskins that had burst and had been mended;
9.5 they also had worn-out and patched sandals on their feet, and they were wearing worn-out garments. All the bread of their provisions was dry and crumbly.
9.6 Then they went to Joshua at the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel: “We have come from a distant land. Now make a covenant with us.”
9.7 But the men of Israel said to the Hivites: “Perhaps you are living near us. So how can we make a covenant with you?”
9.8 They replied to Joshua: “We are your servants.” Then Joshua said to them: “Who are you, and where do you come from?”
9.9 At this they said to him: “Your servants have come from a very distant land out of regard for the name of Jehovah your God, because we have heard about his fame and about all he did in Egypt
9.10 and about all he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan, who was in Ashtaroth.
9.11 So our elders and all the inhabitants of our land told us, ‘Take provisions with you for the journey and go to meet them. Tell them: “We will be your servants; now make a covenant with us.”’
9.12 This bread that we took as our provisions was still hot on the day we left our houses to come here to you. Now you can see it is dry and crumbly.
9.13 And these wineskins were new when we filled them, but now they have burst. And our garments and sandals have worn out because of the great length of the journey.”
9.14 At that the men took some of their provisions, but they did not inquire of Jehovah.
9.15 So Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live, and that is what the chieftains of the assembly swore to them in an oath.
9.16 At the end of three days, after they made a covenant with them, they heard that they lived nearby, in their vicinity.
9.17 Then the Israelites set out and came to their cities on the third day; their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim.
9.18 But the Israelites did not attack them, because the chieftains of the assembly had sworn an oath to them by Jehovah the God of Israel. So all the assembly began to murmur against the chieftains.
9.19 At this all the chieftains said to the entire assembly: “Since we swore an oath to them by Jehovah the God of Israel, we are not allowed to hurt them.
9.20 This is what we will do: We will let them live, so that there is no indignation against us because of the oath that we swore to them.”
9.21 And the chieftains added: “Let them live, but let them become gatherers of wood and drawers of water for all the assembly.” This is what the chieftains promised them.
9.22 Joshua now called them and said to them: “Why did you trick us by saying, ‘We are from a place very far away from you,’ when you really live right among us?
9.23 From now on you are cursed, and you will always occupy a slave’s position as gatherers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.”
9.24 They answered Joshua: “It was because your servants were plainly told that Jehovah your God had commanded Moses his servant to give you all the land and to annihilate all its inhabitants from before you. So we were afraid for our lives because of you, and that is why we did this.
9.25 Now we are at your mercy. Do to us whatever you think is good and right.”
9.26 And that is what he did with them; he saved them from the hands of the Israelites, and they did not kill them.
9.27 But that day Joshua made them gatherers of wood and drawers of water for the assembly and for Jehovah’s altar at the place that He should choose, and they remain so to this day.