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Joshue 8
And the Lord said to Josue: Fear not, nor be thou dismayed:
take with thee all the multitude of fighting men, arise
and go up to the town of Hai. Behold I have delivered
into thy hand the king thereof, and the people, and
the city, and the land.
And thou shalt do to the city of Hai, and to the king
thereof, as thou hast done to Jericho, and to the king
thereof: but the spoils and all the cattle you shall
take for a prey to yourselves: lay an ambush for the
city behind it.
And Josue arose, and all the army of the fighting men
with him, to go up against Hai: and he sent thirty thousand
chosen valiant men in the night,
And commanded them, saying: Lay an ambush behind the
city: and go not very far from it: and be ye all ready.
But I and the rest of the multitude which is with me;
will approach on the contrary side against the city.
And when they shall come out against us, we will flee,
and turn our backs, as we did before:
Till they pursuing us be drawn farther from the city:
for they will think that we flee as before.
And whilst we are fleeing, and they pursuing, you shall
arise out of the ambush, and shall destroy the city:
and the Lord your God will deliver it into our hands.
And when you shall have taken it, set it on fire, and
you shall do all things so as I have commanded.
And he sent them away, and they went on to the place
of the ambush, and abode between Bethel and Hai, on
the west side of the city of Hai. But Josue stayed that
night in the midst of the people,
And rising early in the morning, he mustered his soldiers,
and went up with the ancients in the front of the army
environed with the aid of the fighting men.
And when they were come, and were gone up over against
the city, they stood on the north side of the city,
between which and them there was a valley in the midst.
And he had chosen five thousand men, and set them to
lie in ambush between Bethel and Hai, on the west side
of the same city:
But all the rest of the army went in battle array on
the north side, so that the last of that multitude reached
to the west side of the city. So Josue went that night,
and stood in the midst of the valley.
And when the king of Hai saw this, he made haste in
the morning, and went out with all the army of the city,
and set it in battle array toward the desert, not knowing
that there lay an ambush behind his back.
But Josue, and all Israel gave back, making as if they
were afraid, and fleeing by the way of the wilderness.
But they shouting together, and encouraging one another,
pursued them. And when they were come from the city,
And not one remained in the city of Hai and of Bethel,
that did not pursue after Israel, leaving the towns
open as they had rushed out,
The Lord said to Josue: Lift up the shield that is in
thy hand, towards the city of Hai, for I will deliver
it to thee.
And when he had lifted up his shield towards the city,
the ambush that lay hid, rose up immediately: and going
to the city, took it and set it on fire.
And the men of the city, that pursued after Josue, looking
back and seeing the smoke of the city rise up to heaven,
had no more power to flee this way or that way: especially
as they that had counterfeited flight, end were going
toward the wilderness, turned back most valiantly against
them that pursued.
So Josue and all Israel seeing that the city was taken,
and that the smoke of the city rose up, returned and
slew the men of Hai.
And they also that had taken and set the city on fire,
issuing out of the city to meet their own men, began
to cut off the enemies who were surrounded by them.
So that the enemies being cut off on both sides, not
one of so great a multitude was saved.
And they took the king of the city of Hai alive, and
brought him to Josue.
So all being slain that had pursued after Israel in
his flight to the wilderness, and tailing by the sword
in the same place, the children of Israel returned and
laid waste the city.
And the number of them that fell that day, both of men
and women, was twelve thousand persons all of the city
of Hai.
But Josue drew not back his hand, which he had stretched
out on high, holding the shield, till all the inhabitants
of Hai were slain.
And the children of Israel divided among them the cattle
and the prey of the city, as the Lord had commanded
Josue.
And he burned the city, and made it a heap for ever:
And he hung the king thereof on a gibbet until the evening
and the going down of the sun. Then Josue commanded,
and they took down his carcass from the gibbet: and
threw it in the very entrance of the city, heaping upon
it a great heap of stones, which remaineth until this
present day.
Then Josue built an altar to the Lord the God of Israel
in mount Hebal,
As Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the children
of Israel, and it is written in the book of the law
of Moses: an altar of unhewn stones which iron had not
touched: and he offered upon it holocausts to the Lord,
and immolated victims of peace offerings.
And he wrote upon stones the Deuteronomy of the law
of Moses, which he had ordered before the children of
Israel.
And all the people, and the ancients, and the princes
and judges stood on both sides of the ark, before the
priests that carried the ark of the covenant of the
Lord, both the stranger and he that was born among them,
half of them by mount Garizim, and half by mount Hebal,
as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded. And
first he blessed the people of Israel.
After this he read all the words of the blessing and
the cursing and all things that were written in the
hook of the law.
He left out nothing of those things which Moses had
commanded, but he repeated all before all the people
of Israel, with the women and children and strangers
that dwelt among them.
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