Yehoshua, starting at chapter 7
{7:1} But the children of Yisra'el committed a trespass in the
devoted thing; for `Akhan, the son of Karmi, the son of Zavdi, the son
of Zerach, of the tribe of Yehudah, took of the devoted thing: and the
anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Yisra'el. {7:2}
Yehoshua sent men from Yericho to `Ai, which is beside Beit-Aven, on
the east side of Beit-El, 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
Yehoshua, 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 they are but few. {7:4} So there went up
there of the people about three thousand men: and they fled before the
men of `Ai. {7:5} The men of `Ai struck of them about thirty-six men;
and they chased them [from] before the gate even to Shevarim, and
struck them at the descent; and the hearts of the people melted, and
became as water. {7:6} Yehoshua tore his clothes, and fell to the dirt
on his face before the ark of the LORD until the evening, he and the
Zakenim of Yisra'el; and they put dust on their heads. {7:7} Yehoshua
said, Alas, Lord GOD, why have you at all brought this people over the
Yarden, to deliver us into the hand of the Amori, to cause us to
perish? would that we had been content and lived beyond the Yarden!
{7:8} Oh, Lord, what shall I say, after that Yisra'el has turned their
backs before their enemies! {7:9} For the Kana`anim and all the
inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will compass us round,
and cut off our name from the [1>]eretz[<1]: and what will you do for
your great name? {7:10} The LORD said to Yehoshua, Get you up; why are
you thus fallen on your face? {7:11} Yisra'el has sinned; yes, they
have even transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: yes, they
have even taken of the devoted thing, and have also stolen, and
dissembled also; and they have even put it among their own stuff.
{7:12} Therefore the children of Yisra'el can't stand before their
enemies; they turn their backs before their enemies, because they are
become accursed: I will not be with you any more, except you destroy
the devoted thing from among you. {7:13} Up, sanctify the people, and
say, Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow: for thus says the LORD, the
God of Yisra'el, There is a devoted thing in the midst of you,
Yisra'el; you can not 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: and it shall be, that the tribe
which the LORD takes shall come near by families; and the family which
the LORD shall take shall come near by households; and the household
which the LORD shall take 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 folly in Yisra'el. {7:16} So
Yehoshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Yisra'el near by
their tribes; and the tribe of Yehudah was taken: {7:17} and he
brought near the family of Yehudah; and he took the family of the
Zarchi: and he brought near the family of the Zarchi man by man; and
Zavdi was taken: {7:18} and he brought near his household man by man;
and `Akhan, the son of Karmi, the son of Zavdi, the son of Zerach, of
the tribe of Yehudah, was taken. {7:19} Yehoshua said to `Akhan, My
son, please give glory to the LORD, the God of Yisra'el, and make
confession to him; and tell me now what you have done; don't hide it
from me. {7:20} `Akhan answered Yehoshua, and said, Of a truth I have
sinned against the LORD, the God of Yisra'el, and thus and thus have I
done: {7:21} when I saw among the spoil a goodly mantle of Shin`ar,
and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty
shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they
are hid in the [2>]eretz[<2] in the midst of my tent, and the silver
under it. {7:22} So Yehoshua sent messengers, and they ran to the
tent; and, behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under it.
{7:23} They took them from the midst of the tent, and brought them to
Yehoshua, and to all the children of Yisra'el; and they laid them down
before the LORD. {7:24} Yehoshua, and all Yisra'el with him, took
`Akhan the son of Zerach, and the silver, and the mantle, and the
wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his
donkeys, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they
brought them up to the valley of `Akhor. {7:25} Yehoshua said, Why
have you troubled us? the LORD shall trouble you this day. All
Yisra'el 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, to this day; and the LORD turned from the fierceness of his
anger. Therefore the name of that place was called "The valley of
`Akhor" to this day.
{8:1} The LORD said to Yehoshua, 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, and his
people, and his city, and his land; {8:2} You shall do to `Ai and her
king as you did to Yericho and her king: only the spoil of it, and the
cattle of it, shall you take for a prey to yourselves: set you an
ambush for the city behind it. {8:3} So Yehoshua arose, and all the
people of war, to go up to `Ai: and Yehoshua chose out thirty thousand
men, the mighty men of valor, and sent them forth 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 be all
ready: {8:5} and 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} and they will come out
after us, until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will
say, They flee before us, as at the first: 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; according to the word of the LORD shall you do:
behold, I have commanded you. {8:9} Yehoshua sent them forth; and they
went to set up the ambush, and stayed between Beit-El and `Ai, on the
west side of `Ai: but Yehoshua lodged that night among the people.
{8:10} Yehoshua arose up early in the morning, and mustered the
people, and went up, he and the Zakenim of Yisra'el, 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
Beit-El and `Ai, on the west side of the city. {8:13} So they set the
people, even all the host who was on the north of the city, and their
liers-in-wait who were on the west of the city; and Yehoshua 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 Yisra'el to battle, he and all his people, at
the time appointed, before the `Aravah; but he didn't know that there
was an ambush against him behind the city. {8:15} Yehoshua and all
Yisra'el 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: and they pursued after Yehoshua,
and were drawn away from the city. {8:17} There was not a man left in
`Ai or Beit-El, who didn't go out after Yisra'el: and they left the
city open, and pursued after Yisra'el. {8:18} The LORD said to
Yehoshua, Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward `Ai; for
I will give it into your hand. Yehoshua 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; and 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: and the people who fled to the
wilderness turned back on the pursuers. {8:21} When Yehoshua and all
Yisra'el 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 forth out of the city against them; so they
were in the midst of Yisra'el, some on this side, and some on that
side: and they struck them, so that they let none of them remain or
escape. {8:23} The king of `Ai they took alive, and brought him to
Yehoshua. {8:24} It happened, when Yisra'el had made an end of killing
all the inhabitants of `Ai in the field, in the wilderness in which
they pursued them, and they were all fallen by the edge of the sword,
until they were consumed, that all Yisra'el 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 Yehoshua 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 cattle and the spoil of that city Yisra'el took
for prey to themselves, according to the word of the LORD which he
commanded Yehoshua. {8:28} So Yehoshua burnt `Ai, and made it a heap
forever, even a desolation, to this day. {8:29} The king of `Ai he
hanged on a tree until the evening: and at the going down of the sun
Yehoshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree, and
cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised thereon a
great heap of stones, to this day. {8:30} Then Yehoshua built an altar
to the LORD, the God of Yisra'el, in Mount `Eval, {8:31} as Moshe the
servant of the LORD commanded the children of Yisra'el, as it is
written in the book of the law of Moshe, an altar of uncut stones, on
which no man had lifted up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt
offerings to the LORD, and sacrificed peace-offerings. {8:32} He wrote
there on the stones a copy of the law of Moshe, which he wrote, in the
presence of the children of Yisra'el. {8:33} All Yisra'el, and their
Zakenim and officers, and their judges, stood on this side of the ark
and on that side before the [1>]Kohanim[<1] the Levites, who bore the
ark of the covenant of the LORD, as well the sojourner as the native;
half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of
Mount `Eval; as Moshe the servant of the LORD had commanded at the
first, that they should bless the people of Yisra'el. {8:34} Afterward
he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse,
according to all that is written in the book of the law. {8:35} There
was not a word of all that Moshe commanded, which Yehoshua didn't read
before all the assembly of Yisra'el, and the women, and the little
ones, and the sojourners who were among them.
{9:1} It happened, when all the kings who were beyond the Yarden, in
the hill-country, and in the lowland, and on all the shore of the
great sea in front of Levanon, the Hittite, and the Amori, the
Kana`ani, the Perizzi, the Hivvi, and the Yevusi, heard of it; {9:2}
that they gathered themselves together, to fight with Yehoshua and
with Yisra'el, with one accord. {9:3} But when the inhabitants of
Giv`on heard what Yehoshua had done to Yericho 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 wine-skins, old
and torn and bound up, {9:5} and old and patched shoes on their feet,
and old garments on them; and all the bread of their provision was dry
and was become moldy. {9:6} They went to Yehoshua to the camp at
Gilgal, and said to him, and to the men of Yisra'el, We are come from
a far country: now therefore make you a covenant with us. {9:7} The
men of Yisra'el said to the Hivvi, What if you dwell among us; and how
shall we make a covenant with you? {9:8} They said to Yehoshua, We are
your servants. Yehoshua said to them, Who are you? and from whence
come you? {9:9} They said to him, From a very far country your
servants are come because of the name of the LORD your God: for we
have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Mitzrayim, {9:10}
and all that he did to the two kings of the Amori, who were beyond the
Yarden, to Sichon king of Heshbon, and to `Og king of Bashan, who was
at `Ashtarot. {9:11} Our Zakenim 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: and
now make you a covenant with us. {9:12} This our bread we took hot for
our provision out of our houses on the day we came forth to go to you;
but now, behold, it is dry, and is become moldy: {9:13} and these
wine-skins, which we filled, were new; and, behold, they are torn: and
these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very
long journey. {9:14} The men took of their provision, and didn't ask
counsel at the mouth of the LORD. {9:15} Yehoshua made shalom with
them, and made a covenant with them, to let them live: and 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 Yisra'el journeyed, and came to their cities on the
third day. Now their cities were Giv`on, and Kefirah, and Be'erot, and
Kiryat-Ye`arim. {9:18} The children of Yisra'el didn't strike them,
because the princes of the congregation had sworn to them by the LORD,
the God of Yisra'el. 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 Yisra'el: 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 to all the congregation, as the princes
had spoken to them. {9:22} Yehoshua called for them, and he spoke to
them, saying, Why have you deceived us, saying, We are very far from
you; when you dwell among us? {9:23} Now therefore you are cursed, and
there shall never fail to be of you bondservants, both wood cutters
and drawers of water for the house of my God. {9:24} They answered
Yehoshua, and said, Because it was certainly told your servants, how
that the LORD your God commanded his servant Moshe to give you all the
land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you;
therefore we were sore afraid for our lives because of you, and have
done this thing. {9:25} Now, behold, we are in your hand: as it seems
good and right to you to do to us, do. {9:26} So did he to them, and
delivered them out of the hand of the children of Yisra'el, that they
didn't kill them. {9:27} That day Yehoshua made those 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.
________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
[1] {7:9} earth
[2] {7:21} earth
[1] {8:33} priests
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