Joshua 8:2-3

8:2 Do to Ai and its king what you did to Jericho ¹  and its king, except you may plunder its goods and cattle. Set an ambush behind the city!”

8:3 Joshua and the whole army marched against Ai. ²  Joshua selected thirty thousand brave warriors and sent them out at night.

Joshua 8:10

8:10 Bright and early the next morning Joshua gathered ³  the army, ⁴  and he and the leaders ⁵  of Israel marched ⁶  at the head of it ⁷  to Ai.

Joshua 8:12

8:12 He took five thousand men and set an ambush west of the city between Bethel ⁸  and Ai.

Joshua 8:17

8:17 No men were left in Ai or Bethel; ⁹  they all went out after Israel. ¹⁰  They left the city wide open and chased Israel.

Joshua 8:21

8:21 When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that the city was going up in smoke, ¹¹  they turned around and struck down the men of Ai.

Joshua 8:25-26

8:25 Twelve thousand men and women died ¹²  that day, including all the men of Ai. 8:26 Joshua kept holding out his curved sword until Israel had annihilated all who lived in Ai. ¹³ 

Joshua 10:2

10:2 All Jerusalem was terrified ¹⁴  because Gibeon was a large city, like one of the royal cities. It was larger than Ai and all its men were warriors.

¹ map For location see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.

² tn “And Joshua and all the people of war arose to go up [against] Ai.”

³ tn Or “summoned, mustered.”

⁴ tn Heb “the people.”

⁵ tn Or “elders.”

⁶ tn Heb “went up.”

⁷ tn Heb “them” (referring to “the people” in the previous clause, which requires a plural pronoun). Since the translation used “army” in the previous clause, a singular pronoun (“it”) is required in English.

⁴ map For location see Map4-G4; Map5-C1; Map6-E3; Map7-D1; Map8-G3.

⁵ tc The LXX omits the words “or Bethel.”

⁶ tn Heb “who did not go out after Israel.”

⁶ tn Heb “and that the smoke of the city ascended.”

⁷ tn Heb “fell.”

⁸ tn Heb “Joshua did not draw back his hand which held out the curved sword until he had annihilated all the residents of Ai.”

⁹ tn This statement is subordinated to v. 1 in the Hebrew text, which reads literally, “When Adoni-Zedek…they feared greatly.” The subject of the plural verb at the beginning of v. 2 is probably the residents of Jerusalem.