Quotes About Victory

Then I and all the troops with me will advance on the city. When they come out against us as they did the first time, we will flee from them.

They will pursue us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, ëThe Israelites are running away from us as they did before.í So as we flee from them,

you are to rise from the ambush and seize the city, for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.

And when you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do as the LORD has commanded! See, I have given you orders.”

So Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush and lay in wait between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai. But Joshua spent that night among the people.

Joshua got up early the next morning and mobilized his men, and he and the elders of Israel marched before them up to Ai.

Now Joshua had taken about five thousand men and set up an ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.

So the forces were stationed with the main camp to the north of the city and the rear guard to the west of the city. And that night Joshua went into the valley.

When the king of Ai saw the Israelites, he hurried out early in the morning with the men of the city to engage them in battle at an appointed place overlooking the Arabah. But he did not know that an ambush had been set up against him behind the city.

Joshua and all Israel let themselves be beaten back before them, and they fled toward the wilderness.

Then all the men of Ai were summoned to pursue them, and they followed Joshua and were drawn away from the city.

Not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel, leaving the city wide open while they pursued Israel.

Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Hold out your battle lance toward Ai, for into your hand I will deliver the city.” So Joshua held out his battle lance toward Ai,

and as soon as he did so, the men in ambush rose quickly from their position. They rushed forward, entered the city, captured it, and immediately set it on fire.

When the men of Ai turned and looked back, the smoke of the city was rising into the sky. They could not escape in any direction, and the troops who had fled to the wilderness now became the pursuers.

When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that smoke was rising from it, they turned around and struck down the men of Ai.

Meanwhile, those in the ambush came out of the city against them, and the men of Ai were trapped between the Israelite forces on both sides. So Israel struck them down until no survivor or fugitive remained.

But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai who had pursued them into the field and wilderness, and when every last one of them had fallen by the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and put it to the sword as well.

A total of twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai.

Joshua did not draw back the hand that held his battle lance until he had devoted to destruction all who lived in Ai.

Israel took for themselves only the cattle and plunder of that city, as the LORD had commanded Joshua.

So Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolation to this day.

He hung the king of Ai on a tree until evening, and at sunset Joshua commanded that they take down the body from the tree and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And over it they raised a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day.