Joshua, starting at chapter 7
{7:1} But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the devoted
things; for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of
Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things.
Therefore the LORD's anger burned against the children of Israel.
{7:2} Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Aven,
on the east side of Bethel, and spoke to them, saying, "Go up and spy
out the land."
The men went up and spied out Ai. {7:3} They returned to Joshua, and
said to him, "Don't let all the people go up; but let about two or
three thousand men go up and strike Ai. Don't make all the people to
toil there, for there are only a few of them." {7:4} So about three
thousand men of the people went up there, and they fled before the men
of Ai. {7:5} The men of Ai struck about thirty-six men of them, and
they chased them from before the gate even to Shebarim, and struck
them at the descent. The hearts of the people melted, and became like
water. {7:6} Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his
face before the ark of the LORD until the evening, he and the elders
of Israel; and they put dust on their heads. {7:7} Joshua said, "Alas,
Lord GOD, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to
deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? I
wish that we had been content and lived beyond the Jordan! {7:8} Oh,
Lord, what shall I say, after that Israel has turned their backs
before their enemies! {7:9} For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants
of the land will hear of it, and will surround us, and cut off our
name from the earth. What will you do for your great name?"
{7:10} The LORD said to Joshua, "Get up! Why are you fallen on your
face like that? {7:11} Israel has sinned. Yes, they have even
transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. Yes, they have even
taken of the devoted things, and have also stolen, and also deceived.
They have even put it among their own stuff. {7:12} Therefore the
children of Israel can't stand before their enemies. They turn their
backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for
destruction. I will not be with you any more, unless you destroy the
devoted things from among you.
{7:13} "Get up! Sanctify the people, and say, 'Sanctify yourselves
for tomorrow, for the LORD, the God of Israel, says, "There is a
devoted thing in the midst of you, Israel. You cannot stand before
your enemies until you take away the devoted thing from among you."
{7:14} "'In the morning therefore you shall be brought near by your
tribes. It shall be that the tribe which the LORD selects shall come
near by families. The family which the LORD selects shall come near by
households. The household which the LORD selects shall come near man
by man. {7:15} It shall be, that he who is taken with the devoted
thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he has, because he has
transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he has done a
disgraceful thing in Israel.'"
{7:16} So Joshua rose up early in the morning and brought Israel
near by their tribes. The tribe of Judah was selected. {7:17} He
brought near the family of Judah; and he selected the family of the
Zerahites. He brought near the family of the Zerahites man by man, and
Zabdi was selected. {7:18} He brought near his household man by man,
and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of
the tribe of Judah, was selected. {7:19} Joshua said to Achan, "My
son, please give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and make
confession to him. Tell me now what you have done! Don't hide it from
me!"
{7:20} Achan answered Joshua, and said, "I have truly sinned against
the LORD, the God of Israel, and this is what I have done. {7:21} When
I saw among the spoil a beautiful Babylonian robe, two hundred shekels
of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, then I coveted
them and took them. Behold, they are hidden in the ground in the
middle of my tent, with the silver under it."
{7:22} So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent. Behold,
it was hidden in his tent, with the silver under it. {7:23} They took
them from the middle of the tent, and brought them to Joshua and to
all the children of Israel. They laid them down before the LORD.
{7:24} Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah,
the silver, the robe, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his
cattle, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that he had; and
they brought them up to the valley of Achor. {7:25} Joshua said, "Why
have you troubled us? the LORD will trouble you this day." All Israel
stoned him with stones, and they burned them with fire and stoned them
with stones. {7:26} They raised over him a great heap of stones that
remains to this day. The LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger.
Therefore the name of that place was called "The valley of Achor" to
this day.
{8:1} The LORD said to Joshua, "Don't be afraid, neither be
dismayed. Take all the people of war with you, and arise, go up to Ai.
Behold, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, with his people,
his city, and his land. {8:2} You shall do to Ai and her king as you
did to Jericho and her king, except its spoil and its livestock, you
shall take for a plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city
behind it."
{8:3} So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai.
Joshua chose thirty thousand men, the mighty men of valor, and sent
them out by night. {8:4} He commanded them, saying, "Behold, you shall
lie in ambush against the city, behind the city. Don't go very far
from the city, but all of you be ready. {8:5} I, and all the people
who are with me, will approach to the city. It shall happen, when they
come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them.
{8:6} They will come out after us, until we have drawn them away from
the city; for they will say, 'They flee before us, like the first
time.' So we will flee before them, {8:7} and you shall rise up from
the ambush, and take possession of the city; for the LORD your God
will deliver it into your hand. {8:8} It shall be, when you have
seized on the city, that you shall set the city on fire. You shall do
this according to the word of the LORD. Behold, I have commanded you."
{8:9} Joshua sent them out; and they went to set up the ambush, and
stayed between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; but Joshua
stayed among the people that night. {8:10} Joshua rose up early in the
morning, mustered the people, and went up, he and the elders of
Israel, before the people to Ai. {8:11} All the people, even the men
of war who were with him, went up, and drew near, and came before the
city, and encamped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley
between him and Ai. {8:12} He took about five thousand men, and set
them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.
{8:13} So they set the people, even all the army who was on the north
of the city, and their ambush on the west of the city; and Joshua went
that night into the midst of the valley. {8:14} It happened, when the
king of Ai saw it, that they hurried and rose up early, and the men of
the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at
the time appointed, before the Arabah; but he didn't know that there
was an ambush against him behind the city. {8:15} Joshua and all
Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of
the wilderness. {8:16} All the people who were in the city were called
together to pursue after them. They pursued Joshua, and were drawn
away from the city. {8:17} There was not a man left in Ai or Beth El
who didn't go out after Israel. They left the city open, and pursued
Israel.
{8:18} The LORD said to Joshua, "Stretch out the javelin that is in
your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand."
Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the
city. {8:19} The ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran
as soon as he had stretched out his hand, and entered into the city,
and took it. They hurried and set the city on fire. {8:20} When the
men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke of the
city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or
that way. The people who fled to the wilderness turned back on the
pursuers. {8:21} When Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had
taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they
turned again, and killed the men of Ai. {8:22} The others came out of
the city against them, so they were in the midst of Israel, some on
this side, and some on that side. They struck them, so that they let
none of them remain or escape. {8:23} They captured the king of Ai
alive, and brought him to Joshua.
{8:24} It happened, when Israel had made an end of killing all the
inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness in which they
pursued them, and they had all fallen by the edge of the sword, until
they were consumed, that all Israel returned to Ai, and struck it with
the edge of the sword. {8:25} All that fell that day, both of men and
women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. {8:26} For Joshua
didn't draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin,
until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. {8:27} Only
the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took for prey to
themselves, according to the word of the LORD which he commanded
Joshua. {8:28} So Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a
desolation, to this day. {8:29} He hanged the king of Ai on a tree
until the evening, and at the sundown Joshua commanded, and they took
his body down from the tree, and threw it at the entrance of the gate
of the city, and raised a great heap of stones on it that remains to
this day.
{8:30} Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, in
Mount Ebal, {8:31} as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the
children of Israel, as it is written in the scroll of the Torah of
Moses, an altar of uncut stones, on which no man had lifted up any
iron. They offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, and sacrificed
peace offerings. {8:32} He wrote there on the stones a copy of the
Torah of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of
Israel. {8:33} All Israel, and their elders and officers, and their
judges, stood on this side of the ark and on that side before the
priests the Levites, who carried the ark of the LORD's covenant, the
foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount
Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant
of the LORD had commanded at the first, that they should bless the
people of Israel. {8:34} Afterward he read all the words of the law,
the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the
scroll of the Torah. {8:35} There was not a word of all that Moses
commanded, which Joshua didn't read before all the assembly of Israel,
with the women, the little ones, and the foreigners who were among
them.
{9:1} It happened, when all the kings who were beyond the Jordan, in
the hill country, and in the lowland, and on all the shore of the
great sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittite, the Amorite, the
Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard of it
{9:2} that they gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua and
with Israel, with one accord. {9:3} But when the inhabitants of Gibeon
heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, {9:4} they also
resorted to a ruse, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors,
and took old sacks on their donkeys, and wineskins, old and torn and
bound up, {9:5} and old and patched shoes on their feet, and wore old
garments. All the bread of their provision was dry and moldy. {9:6}
They went to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal, and said to him, and to the
men of Israel, "We have come from a far country. Now therefore make a
covenant with us."
{9:7} The men of Israel said to the Hivites, "What if you live among
us. How could we make a covenant with you?"
{9:8} They said to Joshua, "We are your servants."
Joshua said to them, "Who are you? Where do you come from?"
{9:9} They said to him, "Your servants have come from a very far
country because of the name of the LORD your God; for we have heard of
his fame, all that he did in Egypt, {9:10} and all that he did to the
two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon king of
Heshbon and to Og king of Bashan, who was at Ashtaroth. {9:11} Our
elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us, saying,
'Take provision in your hand for the journey, and go to meet them, and
tell them, "We are your servants. Now make a covenant with us."'
{9:12} This our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses
on the day we went out to go to you; but now, behold, it is dry, and
has become moldy. {9:13} These wineskins, which we filled, were new;
and behold, they are torn. These our garments and our shoes have
become old because of the very long journey."
{9:14} The men sampled their provisions, and didn't ask counsel from
the mouth of the LORD. {9:15} Joshua made peace with them, and made a
covenant with them, to let them live. The princes of the congregation
swore to them. {9:16} It happened at the end of three days after they
had made a covenant with them, that they heard that they were their
neighbors, and that they lived among them. {9:17} The children of
Israel traveled and came to their cities on the third day. Now their
cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath Jearim. {9:18} The
children of Israel didn't strike them, because the princes of the
congregation had sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. All the
congregation murmured against the princes. {9:19} But all the princes
said to all the congregation, "We have sworn to them by the LORD, the
God of Israel: now therefore we may not touch them. {9:20} This we
will do to them, and let them live; lest wrath be on us, because of
the oath which we swore to them." {9:21} The princes said to them,
"Let them live, so they became wood cutters and drawers of water for
all the congregation, as the princes had spoken to them."
{9:22} Joshua called for them, and he spoke to them, saying, "Why
have you deceived us, saying, 'We are very far from you,' when you
live among us? {9:23} Now therefore you are cursed, and some of you
will never fail to be bondservants, both wood cutters and drawers of
water for the house of my God."
{9:24} They answered Joshua, and said, "Because your servants were
certainly told how the LORD your God commanded his servant Moses to
give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land
from before you. Therefore we were very afraid for our lives because
of you, and have done this thing. {9:25} Now, behold, we are in your
hand. Do to us as it seems good and right to you to do."
{9:26} He did so to them, and delivered them out of the hand of the
children of Israel, so that they didn't kill them. {9:27} That day
Joshua made them wood cutters and drawers of water for the
congregation and for the altar of the LORD, to this day, in the place
which he should choose.
________________________________________________________________________
The World English Bible: Messianic Edition is in the Public Domain.
This translation is also known as the Hebrew Names Version. "World
English Bible," "World English Bible: Messianic Edition," and "World
English Bible" are trademarks of Rainbow Missions, Inc., and may only
be used as names for the Bible translations so named and distributed by
Rainbow Missions, Inc., and faithful copies thereof. Typo reports are
welcome at http://eBible.org/cgi-bin/comment.cgi. Please see
http://HNVBible.org for updates.
_______________________________________________
You are subscribed to the
[email protected]
mailing list as
[email protected].
You may unsubscribe at
http://lists.ebible.org/mailman/listinfo/hnv
or send an email to
[email protected]
with "unsubscribe" in the subject.
