However, there shall be a distance between you and it of about 2,000 cubits (3,000 ft.) by measurement. Do not come near it, so that you may [be able to see the ark and] know the way you are to go, for you have not passed this way before.”

So Joshua sent them off, and they went to the place for the ambush and stayed [hidden] between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; but Joshua spent that night among the people [in Gilgal].

Then all the fighting men who were with him went up and advanced and arrived in front of the city, and camped on the north side of Ai. Now there was a ravine between them and Ai.

And Joshua took about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.

Then men in ambush came out of the city against them, and the men of Ai were trapped between the Israelite forces, some on one side and some on the other. They struck them down until no survivor or fugitive remained,

Joshua conquered the area between Kadesh Barnea and Gaza and the whole region of Goshen, all the way to Gibeon.

Sihon, king of the Amorites, dwelling in Heshbon, he ruled from Aroer, which is upon the lip of the torrent Arnon, and between the torrent and half Gilead, and even to the torrent Jabbok, the boundary of the sons of Ammon;

and the land of Tappuah belonged to Manasseh, which Tappuah lay in the borders between Manasseh and the children of Ephraim.

The first lot belonged to the tribe of Benjamin by its clans. Their allotted territory was between Judah and Joseph.

But in fact, we have done this because of anxiety, because of a reason, saying, 'In the future your children may say to our children, '{What is the relationship between you and Yahweh the God of Israel}?

The Lord made the Jordan a boundary between us and you Reubenites and Gadites. You have no right to worship the Lord.' In this way your descendants might cause our descendants to stop obeying the Lord.

but to be a witness between us and you and between the generations after us, that we are to perform the service of the Lord before Him with our burnt offerings, and with our sacrifices and with our peace offerings, so that your sons (descendants) will not say to our sons in time to come, “You have no part in the Lord.”’

So we said, ‘If your descendants should say this to us or to our descendants in time to come, then we can reply, “See the copy of the altar of the Lord which our fathers made, not for burnt offering or for sacrifice, but rather it is a witness between us and you.”’

The sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad called the altar Witness; “For it is a witness between us that the Lord is God.”

Many years later, after the LORD had given peace between Israel and all its surrounding enemies, and after Joshua had become very old,

Your fathers cried out for help to the Lord; he made the area between you and the Egyptians dark, and then drowned them in the sea. You witnessed with your very own eyes what I did in Egypt. You lived in the wilderness for a long time.