Then Joshua, the son of Nun, sent two men from Shittim secretly, with the purpose of searching out the land, and Jericho. So they went and came to the house of a loose woman of the town, named Rahab, where they took their rest for the night.

So the men went after them on the road to Jordan as far as the river-crossing: and when they had gone out after them, the door into the town was shut.

Then she let them down from the window by a cord, for the house where she was living was on the town wall.

If, when we come into the land, you put this cord of bright red thread in the window from which you let us down; and get your father and mother and your brothers and all your family into the house;

Then the two men came down from the hill-country and went over and came back to Joshua, the son of Nun; and they gave him a complete account of what had taken place.

And when the feet of the priests who take up the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, come to rest in the waters of Jordan, the waters of Jordan will be cut off, all the waters flowing down from higher up, and will come together in a mass.

Then the waters flowing down from higher up were stopped and came together in a mass a long way back at Adam, a town near Zarethan; and the waters flowing down to the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were cut off: and the people went across opposite Jericho.

And say to them, Take up from the middle of Jordan, from the place where the feet of the priests were resting, twelve stones, and take them over with you and put them down in the place where you take your rest tonight.

So the children of Israel did as Joshua gave them orders, and took twelve stones from the middle of Jordan, as the Lord had said to Joshua, one for every tribe of the children of Israel; these they took across with them to their night's resting-place and put them down there.

For the priests who took up the ark kept there in the middle of Jordan till all the orders given to Joshua by Moses from the Lord had been done: then the people went over quickly.

And he said, No; but I have come as captain of the armies of the Lord. Then Joshua, falling down with his face to the earth in worship, said, What has my lord to say to his servant?

Now let all your fighting-men make a circle round the town, going all round it once. Do this for six days.

And let seven priests go before the ark with seven loud-sounding horns in their hands: on the seventh day you are to go round the town seven times, the priests blowing their horns.

And at the sound of a long note on the horns, let all the people give a loud cry; and the wall of the town will come down flat, and all the people are to go straight forward.

And he said to the people, Go forward, circling the town, and let the armed men go before the ark of the Lord.

So he made the ark of the Lord go all round the town once: then they went back to the tents for the night.

The second day they went all round the town once, and then went back to their tents: and so they did for six days.

Then on the seventh day they got up early, at the dawn of the day, and went round the town in the same way, but that day they went round it seven times.

And the seventh time, at the sound of the priests' horns, Joshua said to the people, Now give a loud cry; for the Lord has given you the town.

And the town will be put to the curse, and everything in it will be given to the Lord: only Rahab, the loose woman, and all who are in the house with her, will be kept safe, because she kept secret the men we sent.

So the people gave a loud cry, and the horns were sounded; and on hearing the horns the people gave a loud cry, and the wall came down flat, so that the people went up into the town, every man going straight before him, and they took the town.

And they put everything in the town to the curse; men and women, young and old, ox and sheep and ass, they put to death without mercy.

Then, after burning up the town and everything in it, they put the silver and gold and the vessels of brass and iron into the store-house of the Lord's house.

Then Joshua gave the people orders with an oath, saying, Let that man be cursed before the Lord who puts his hand to the building up of this town: with the loss of his first son will he put the first stone of it in place, and with the loss of his youngest son he will put up its doors.

Then they came back to Joshua and said to him, Do not send all the people up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and make an attack on Ai; there is no need for all the people to be tired with the journey there, for it is only a small town.

The men of Ai put to death about thirty-six of them, driving them from before the town as far as the stoneworks, and overcoming them on the way down: and the hearts of the people became like water.

Then Joshua, in great grief, went down on the earth before the ark of the Lord till the evening, and all the chiefs of Israel with him, and they put dust on their heads.

Israel has done wrong, sinning against the agreement which I made with them: they have even taken of the cursed thing; acting falsely like thieves they have put it among their goods.

Then the man who is taken with the cursed thing is to be burned, with everything which is his; because he has gone against the agreement of the Lord and has done an act of shame in Israel.

And Joshua said to Achan, My son, give glory and praise to the Lord, the God of Israel; give me word now of what you have done, and keep nothing back from me.

And Achan, answering, said to Joshua, Truly I have done wrong against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I have done:

Then the Lord said to Joshua, Have no fear and do not be troubled: take with you all the fighting-men and go up against Ai: for I have given into your hands the king of Ai and his people and his town and his land:

And you are to do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king: but their goods and their cattle you may take for yourselves: let a secret force be stationed to make a surprise attack on the town from the back.

And he gave them their orders, saying, Go and take up your position secretly at the back of the town: do not go very far away, and let all of you be ready:

And I and all the people with me will come near the town, and when they come out against us as they did before, we will go in flight from them;

And they will come out after us, till we have got them away from the town; for they will say, They have gone in flight from us as before; so we will go in flight before them;

Then you will get up from your secret position and take the town, for the Lord your God will give it up into your hands.

And when you have taken the town, put fire to it, as the Lord has said: see, I have given you your orders.

And all the fighting-men who were with him went up and came near the town, and took up a position on the north side of Ai facing the town, with a valley between him and the town.

So all the people were in their places, the army on the north side of the town and the secret force on the west; and that night Joshua went down into the valley.

Now when the king of Ai saw it, he got up quickly and went out to war against Israel, he and all his people, to the slope going down to the valley; but he had no idea that a secret force was waiting at the back of the town.

And all the people in Ai came together to go after them; and they went after Joshua, moving away from the town.

There was not a man in Ai and Beth-el who did not go out after Israel; and the town was open and unwatched while they went after Israel.

And the Lord said to Joshua, Let your spear be stretched out against Ai; for I will give it into your hands. So Joshua took up his spear, stretching it out in the direction of the town.

Then the secret force came quickly from their place, and running forward when they saw his hand stretched out, went into the town and took it, and put fire to it straight away.

Then the men of Ai, looking back, saw the smoke of the town going up to heaven, and were unable to go this way or that: and the people who had gone in flight to the waste land were turned back on those who were coming after them.

And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the town had been taken by the surprise attack, and that the smoke of the town had gone up, turning round they overcame the men of Ai.

Then the other force came out of the town against them, so that they were being attacked on this side and on that: and Israel overcame them and let not one of them get away with his life.

But the cattle and the goods from that town, Israel took for themselves, as the Lord had given orders to Joshua.

And he put the king of Ai to death, hanging him on a tree till evening: and when the sun went down, Joshua gave them orders to take his body down from the tree, and put it in the public place of the town, covering it with a great mass of stones, which is there to this day.

And the men of Gibeon, hearing what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,

And, answering Joshua, they said, Because it came to the ears of your servants that the Lord your God had given orders to his servant Moses to give you all this land, and to send destruction on all the people living in it, because of you; so, fearing greatly for our lives because of you, we have done this.

Now when it came to the ears of Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, that Joshua had taken Ai, and had given it up to the curse (for as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king); and that the people of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were living among them;

He was in great fear, because Gibeon was a great town, like one of the king's towns, greater than Ai, and all the men in it were men of war.

And in their flight before Israel, on the way down from Beth-horon, the Lord sent down great stones from heaven on them all the way to Azekah, causing their death: those whose death was caused by the stones were more than those whom the children of Israel put to death with the sword.

And the sun was at rest and the moon kept its place till the nation had given punishment to their attackers. (Is it not recorded in the book of Jashar?) So the sun kept its place in the middle of the heavens, and was waiting, and did not go down, for the space of a day.

And when the sun went down, they were taken down from the trees, by Joshua's orders, and put into the hole where they had gone to be safe; and great stones were placed at the mouth of the hole, where they are to this day.

That day Joshua took Makkedah, and put it and its king to the sword; every soul in it he gave up to the curse without mercy: and he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.

And again the Lord gave it and its king into the hands of Israel; and he put it and every person in it to the sword, till their destruction was complete; and he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.

And the Lord gave Lachish into the hands of Israel, and on the second day he took it, putting it and every person in it to the sword without mercy, as he had done to Libnah.

And that day they took it, putting it and every person in it to the sword, as he had done to Lachish.

And took it, overcoming it and putting it and its king and its towns and every person in it to the sword: as he had done to Eglon, he put them all to death, and gave it up to the curse with every person in it.

And he took it, with its king and all its towns: and he put them to the sword, giving every person in it to the curse; all were put to death: as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir and its king.

As the Lord had given orders to Moses his servant, so Moses gave orders to Joshua, and so Joshua did; every order which the Lord had given to Moses was done.

Not one town made peace with the children of Israel, but only the Hivites of Gibeon: they took them all in war.

Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was living in Heshbon, ruling from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the town in the middle of the valley, and half Gilead, as far as the river Jabbok, the limits of the children of Ammon;

From Aroer, on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the town in the middle of the valley, and all the table-land from Medeba to Dibon;

Their limit was from Aroer, on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the town in the middle of the valley, and all the table-land by Medeba;

Then turning west, the line goes from Baalah to Mount Seir, and on to the side of Mount Jearim (which is Chesalon) on the north, then down to Beth-shemesh, and on past Timnah:

Now when she came to him, he put into her mind the idea of requesting a field from her father: and she got down from her ass; and Caleb said to her, What is it?

And Dannah, and Kiriath-sannah (which is Debir);

Kain, Gibeah, and Timnah; ten towns with their unwalled places.

And Nibshan, and the Town of Salt, and En-gedi; six towns with their unwalled places.

And it goes down to the west to the limit of the Japhletites, to the limit of Beth-horon the lower, as far as Gezer; ending at the sea.

And from Janoah down to Ataroth, and to Naarah, and touching Jericho, it goes on to Jordan.

And ten parts were given to Manasseh, in addition to the land of Gilead and Bashan, which is on the other side of Jordan;

And the limit goes down to the stream Kanah, to the south of the stream: these towns were Ephraim's among the towns of Manasseh; Manasseh's limit was on the north side of the stream, ending at the sea:

For the hill-country of Gilead will be yours ... the woodland and cut down ... its outskirts will be yours ... get the Canaanites out, for they have iron war-carriages ... strong.

So the men got up and went; and Joshua gave orders to those who went, to make a record of the land, saying, Go up and down through the land, and make a record of it and come back here to me, and I will make the distribution for you here by the decision of the Lord in Shiloh.

And from there the line goes south to Luz, to the side of Luz (which is Beth-el), then down to Ataroth-addar, by the mountain to the south of Beth-horon the lower.

And the limit is marked as coming round to the south on the west side from the mountain which is south of Beth-horon, and ending at Kiriath-baal (which is Kiriath-jearim), a town of the children of Judah: this is the west part.

And the line goes down to the farthest part of the mountain facing the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is on the north of the valley of Rephaim: from there it goes down to the valley of Hinnom, to the side of the Jebusite on the south as far as En-rogel;

And it goes to En-shemesh and on to Geliloth, opposite the way up to Adummim, and it goes down to the stone of Bohan, the son of Reuben;

And it goes on to the side facing the Arabah to the north, and down to the Arabah;

And the limit goes round to Ramah and the walled town of Tyre and Hosah, ending at the sea by Heleb and Achzib;

For the tribe of Dan by their families the seventh heritage came out;

(But the limit of the children of Dan was not wide enough for them; so the children of Dan went up and made war on Leshem and took it, putting it to the sword without mercy, and they took it for their heritage and made a place for themselves there, giving it the name of Leshem-dan, after the name of their father, Dan.)

This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Dan by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

By the orders of the Lord they gave him the town for which he made request, Timnath-serah in the hill-country of Ephraim: there, after building the town, he made his living-place.

And if anyone goes in flight to one of those towns, and comes into the public place of the town, and puts his cause before the responsible men of the town, they will take him into the town and give him a place among them where he may be safe.

And he is to go on living in that town till he has to come before the meeting of the people to be judged; (till the death of him who is high priest at that time:) then the taker of life may come back to his town and to his house, to the town from which he had gone in flight.

The rest of the children of Kohath by their families were given ten towns from the tribes of Ephraim and Dan and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

They gave them Kiriath-arba, the town of Arba, the father of Anak, (which is Hebron) in the hill-country of Judah, with its grass-lands.

But the open country round the town, and its unwalled places, they gave to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, as his property.

And to the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with its grass-lands, the town where the taker of life might be safe, and Libnah with its grass-lands;

And they gave them Shechem with its grass-lands in the hill-country of Ephraim, the town where the taker of life might be safe, and Gezer with its grass-lands;

And from the tribe of Dan, Elteke and Gibbethon with their grass-lands;

All the towns of the rest of the families of the children of Kohath were ten with their grass-lands.

And to the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites, they gave from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Golan in Bashan with its grass-lands, the town where the taker of life might be safe, and Ashtaroth with its grass-lands, two towns.

And from the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with its grass-lands, the town where the taker of life might be safe, and Hammoth-dor and Kartan with their grass-lands, three towns.