They told Joshua, “Surely the Lord is handing over all the land to us! All who live in the land are cringing before us!”

Bright and early the next morning Joshua and the Israelites left Shittim and came to the Jordan. They camped there before crossing the river.

When the entire nation was on the other side, the Lord told Joshua,

Joshua summoned the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one per tribe.

That day the Lord brought honor to Joshua before all Israel. They respected him all his life, just as they had respected Moses.

At that time the Lord told Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites once again.”

This is why Joshua had to circumcise them: All the men old enough to fight when they left Egypt died on the journey through the desert after they left Egypt.

He replaced them with their sons, whom Joshua circumcised. They were uncircumcised; their fathers had not circumcised them along the way.

The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have taken away the disgrace of Egypt from you.” So that place is called Gilgal even to this day.

The Lord told Joshua, “See, I am about to defeat Jericho for you, along with its king and its warriors.

The seventh time around, the priests blew the rams’ horns and Joshua told the army, “Give the battle cry, for the Lord is handing the city over to you!

Achan told Joshua, “It is true. I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel in this way:

They took it all from the middle of the tent, brought it to Joshua and all the Israelites, and placed it before the Lord.

Bright and early the next morning Joshua gathered the army, and he and the leaders of Israel marched at the head of it to Ai.

The army was in position – the main army north of the city and the rear guard west of the city. That night Joshua went into the middle of the valley.

All the reinforcements in Ai were ordered to chase them; they chased Joshua and were lured away from the city.

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

Joshua kept holding out his curved sword until Israel had annihilated all who lived in Ai.

But Israel did plunder the cattle and the goods of the city, in accordance with the Lord’s orders to Joshua.

They came to Joshua at the camp in Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land. Make a treaty with us.”