And Joshua put up twelve stones in the middle of Jordan, where the feet of the priests who took up the ark of the agreement had been placed: and there they are to this day.

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.

Give orders to the priests who take up the ark of witness, to come up out of Jordan.

And when the priests who took up the ark of the Lord's agreement came up out of Jordan and their feet came out on to dry land, the waters of Jordan went back to their place, overflowing its edges as before.

For the Lord your God made the waters of Jordan dry before you till you had gone across, as he did to the Red Sea, drying it up before us till we had gone across:

At that time the Lord said to Joshua, Make yourself stone knives and give the children of Israel circumcision a second time.

And this is the reason why Joshua did so: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the fighting-men, had been overtaken by death in the waste land on the way, after they came out of Egypt.

All the people who came out had undergone circumcision; but all the people whose birth had taken place in the waste land on their journey from Egypt had not.

For the children of Israel were wandering in the waste land for forty years, till all the nation, that is, all the fighting-men, who had come out of Egypt, were dead, because they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord: to whom the Lord said, with an oath, that he would not let them see the land which the Lord had given his word to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

And their children, who came up in their place, now underwent circumcision by the hands of Joshua, not having had it before: for there had been no circumcision on the journey.

And the Lord said to Joshua, Today the shame of Egypt has been rolled away from you. So that place was named Gilgal, to this day.

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, lifting up his eyes he saw a man in front of him, with his sword uncovered in his hand: and Joshua went up to him and said, Are you for us or against us?

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?

And the captain of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy. And Joshua did so.

And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given into your hands Jericho with its king and all its men of war.

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 the armed men went before the priests who were blowing the horns, and the mass of the people went after the ark, blowing their horns.

And to the people Joshua gave an order, saying, You will give no cry, and make no sound, and let no word go out of your mouth till the day when I say, Give a loud cry; then give a loud cry.

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.

And as for you, keep yourselves from the cursed thing, for fear that you may get a desire for it and take some of it for yourselves, and so be the cause of a curse and great trouble on the tents of Israel.

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.

Then Joshua said to the two men who had been sent to make a search through the land, Go into the house of the loose woman, and get her out, and all who are with her, as you gave her your oath.

But Joshua kept Rahab, the loose woman, and her father's family and all she had, from death, and so she got a living-place among the children of Israel to this day; because she kept safe the men whom Joshua had sent to make a search through the land.

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.

Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is by the side of Beth-aven, on the east side of Beth-el, and said to them, Go up and make a search through the land. And the men went up and saw how Ai was placed.

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.

So about three thousand of the people went up, and were sent in flight by the men of Ai.

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.

And Joshua said, O Lord God, why have you taken us over Jordan only to give us up into the hands of the Amorites for our destruction? If only it had been enough for us to keep on the other side of Jordan!

O Lord, what am I to say now that Israel have given way before their attackers?

For when the news comes to the Canaanites and all the people of the land, they will come up, shutting us in and cutting off our name from the earth: and what will you do for the honour of your great name?

Then the Lord said to Joshua, Get up; what are you doing with your face to the earth?

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.

For this reason the children of Israel have given way, turning their backs in flight before their attackers, because they are cursed: I will no longer be with you, if you do not put the cursed thing away from among you.

Up! make the people holy; say to them, Make yourselves holy before tomorrow, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has said, There is a cursed thing among you, O Israel, and you will give way before your attackers in the fight till the cursed thing has been taken away from among you.

So in the morning you are to come near, tribe by tribe; and the tribe marked out by the Lord is to come near, family by family; and the family marked out by the Lord is to come near, house by house; and the house marked out by the Lord is to come near, man by man.

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:

When I saw among their goods a fair robe of Babylon and two hundred shekels of silver, and a mass of gold, fifty shekels in weight, I was overcome by desire and took them; and they are put away in the earth in my tent, and the silver is under it.

So Joshua sent men quickly, and looking in his tent, they saw where the robe had been put away secretly with the silver under it.

And Joshua said, Why have you been a cause of trouble to us? Today the Lord will send trouble on you. And all Israel took part in stoning him; they had him stoned to death and then burned with fire.

And over him they put a great mass of stones, which is there to this day; then the heat of the Lord's wrath was turned away. So that place was named, The Valley of Achor, to this day.

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.

So Joshua and the fighting-men got ready to go up against Ai; and Joshua took thirty thousand men of war, and sent them out by night.

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.

So Joshua sent them out: and they took up a secret position between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua kept with the people that night.

And early in the morning Joshua got up, and put the people in order, and he and the chiefs of Israel went up before the people to Ai.

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.

And taking about five thousand men, he put them in position for a surprise attack on the west side of Ai, between Beth-el and Ai.

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.

Then Joshua and all Israel, acting as if they were overcome before them, went in flight by way of the waste land.

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 king of Ai they made prisoner, and took him to Joshua.

Then, after the destruction of all the people of Ai in the field and in the waste land where they went after them, and when all the people had been put to death without mercy, all Israel went back to Ai, and put to death all who were in it without mercy.

On that day twelve thousand were put to death, men and women, all the people of Ai.

For Joshua did not take back his hand with the outstretched spear till the destruction of the people of Ai was complete.

So Joshua gave Ai to the flames, and made it a waste mass of stones for ever, as it is to this day.

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.

In the way ordered by Moses, the servant of the Lord, as it is recorded in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, untouched by any iron instrument: and on it they made burned offerings and peace-offerings to the Lord.

And he made there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, writing it before the eyes of the children of Israel.

And all Israel, those who were Israelites by birth, as well as the men from other lands living with them, and their responsible men and their overseers and judges, took their places round the ark, in front of the priests, the Levites, whose work it was to take up the ark of the Lord's agreement; half of them were stationed in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, in agreement with the orders for the blessing of the children of Israel which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had given.

Reading to all the meeting of Israel, with the women and the children and the men from other lands who were living among them, every word of the orders which Moses had given.

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

Acting with deceit, got food together as if for a long journey; and took old food-bags for their asses, and old and cracked wine-skins kept together with cord;

And they came to Joshua to the tent-circle at Gilgal, and said to him and to the men of Israel, We have come from a far country: so now make an agreement with us.

And the men of Israel said to the Hivites, It may be that you are living among us; how then may we make an agreement with you?

And they said to Joshua, We are your servants. Then Joshua said to them, Who are you and where do you come from?

And they said to him, Your servants have come from a very far country, because of the name of the Lord your God: for the story of his great name, and of all he did in Egypt has come to our ears,

So the responsible men and all the people of our country said to us, Take food with you for the journey and go to them, and say to them, We are your servants: so now make an agreement with us.

This bread which we have with us for our food, we took warm and new from our houses when starting on our journey to you; but now see, it has become dry and broken up.

And these wine-skins were new when we put the wine in them, and now they are cracked as you see; and our clothing and our shoes have become old because of our very long journey here.

But all the chiefs said to the people, We have taken an oath to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, and so we may not put our hands on them.

This is what we will do to them: we will not put them to death, for fear that wrath may come on us because of our oath to them.

Then Joshua sent for them, and said to them, Why have you been false to us, saying, We are very far from you, when you are living among us?

Now because of this you are cursed, and you will for ever be our servants, cutting wood and getting water for the house of my God.

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.

And now we are in your hands: do to us whatever seems good and right to you.

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 the Lord said to Joshua, Have no fear of them, for I have given them into your hands; they will all give way before you.

So Joshua, having come up from Gilgal all night, made a sudden attack on them.

And the Lord made them full of fear before Israel, and they put great numbers of them to death at Gibeon, and went after them by the way going up to Beth-horon, driving them back to Azekah and Makkedah

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.

It was on the day when the Lord gave up the Amorites into the hands of the children of Israel that Joshua said to the Lord, before the eyes of Israel, Sun, be at rest over Gibeon; and you, O moon, in the valley of Aijalon.