New Living Translation (NLT)
Joshua 8
22 Meanwhile, the Israelites who were inside the town came out and attacked the enemy from the rear. So the men of Ai were caught in the middle, with Israelite fighters on both sides. Israel attacked them, and not a single person survived or escaped.
23 Only the king of Ai was taken alive and brought to Joshua.
24 When the Israelite army finished chasing and killing all the men of Ai in the open fields, they went back and finished off everyone inside.
25 So the entire population of Ai, including men and women, was wiped out that day—12,000 in all.
26 For Joshua kept holding out his spear until everyone who had lived in Ai was completely destroyed.
27 Only the livestock and the treasures of the town were not destroyed, for the Israelites kept these as plunder for themselves, as the LORD had commanded Joshua.
28 So Joshua burned the town of Ai, and it became a permanent mound of ruins, desolate to this very day.
29 Joshua impaled the king of Ai on a sharpened pole and left him there until evening. At sunset the Israelites took down the body, as Joshua commanded, and threw it in front of the town gate. They piled a great heap of stones over him that can still be seen today.
30 Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal.
31 He followed the commands that Moses the LORD’s servant had written in the Book of Instruction: “Make me an altar from stones that are uncut and have not been shaped with iron tools.” Then on the altar they presented burnt offerings and peace offerings to the LORD.
32 And as the Israelites watched, Joshua copied onto the stones of the altar the instructions Moses had given them.
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