When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, you arrived at the sea. The Egyptians chased your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea.

No men were left in Ai or Bethel; ¹  they all went out after Israel. ²  They left the city wide open and chased Israel.

These wineskins we filled were brand new, but look how they have ripped. Our clothes and sandals have worn out because it has been a very long journey.”

Today I am still as strong as when Moses sent me out. I can fight and go about my daily activities with the same energy I had then. ¹ 

Pick three men from each tribe. I will send them out to walk through the land and make a map of it for me. ¹ 

Joshua told the two men who had spied on the land, “Enter the prostitute’s house ¹  and bring out the woman and all who belong to her as you promised her.” ² 

(Now she had taken them up to the roof and had hidden them in the stalks of flax she had spread out ¹  on the roof.)

This bread of ours was warm when we packed it in our homes the day we started out to meet you, ¹  but now it is dry and hard. ² 

The Lord drove out from before us all the nations, including the Amorites who lived in the land. So we too will worship ¹  the Lord, for he is our God!”

When he held out his hand, the men waiting in ambush rose up quickly from their place and attacked. ¹  They entered the city, captured it, and immediately set it on fire.

Meanwhile ¹  the king’s men tried to find them on the road to the Jordan River ²  near the fords. ³  The city gate was shut as soon as they set out in pursuit of them. ⁴ 

At the same time the men who had taken the city came out to fight, and the men of Ai were trapped in the middle. ¹  The Israelites struck them down, leaving no survivors or refugees.

Joshua continued, ¹  “This is how you will know the living God is among you and that he will truly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites.

But as for you, map out the land into seven regions and bring it to me. I will draw lots for you here before the Lord our God.

For the Lord our God took us and our fathers out of slavery ¹  in the land of Egypt ²  and performed these awesome miracles ³  before our very eyes. He continually protected us as we traveled and when we passed through nations. ⁴ 

Three days after they made the treaty with them, the Israelites found out they were from the local area and lived nearby. ¹ 

and told them: “You have carried out all the instructions of Moses the Lord’s servant, and you have obeyed all I have told you. ¹ 

See, I have parceled out to your tribes these remaining nations, ¹  from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea ²  in the west, including all the nations I defeated. ³ 

When the king of Ai saw Israel, he and his whole army quickly got up the next day and went out to fight Israel at the meeting place near the Arabah. ¹  But he did not realize ²  men were hiding behind the city. ³ 

know for certain that the Lord our God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. They will trap and ensnare you; ¹  they will be a whip that tears ²  your sides and thorns that blind ³  your eyes until you disappear ⁴  from this good land the Lord your God gave you.