Josue 8

¹And our Lord said to Josue: Fear not, neither do thou dread: take with thee all the multitude of fighting men, and rising go up unto the town of Hai. Behold I have delivered into thy hand the king thereof, & the people, and the city and the land.

²And 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 prey and all the cattle you shall spoil for yourselves: lay ambushments to the city behind it.

³And Josue arose, and all the host of the men of war with him, to go up into Hai: and thirty thousand chosen valiant men he sent in the night,

⁴and commanded them, saying: Lay ambushments behind the city: neither retire you far off: and you shall all be ready.

⁵But I and the rest of the multitude, which is with me, will go up on the contrary side against the city. And when they shall issue out against us, as we did before, we will fly, and turn our backs:

⁶till pursuing they be drawn forward far from the city: for they will think that we fly as before.

⁷We therefore flying, and they pursuing, you shall rise out of the ambushments, and shall waste the city: and our Lord your God will deliver it into your hands.

⁸And when you shall take it, burn it, and you shall do all things so, as I have commanded.

⁹And he dismissed them away, and they went on to the place of the ambushments, and sat between Bethel and Hai, at the West side of the city of Hai. But Josue that night stayed in the midst of the people,

¹⁰and rising early he mustered his soldiers, and went up with the ancients in the front of the host, environed with the aid of the fighting men.

¹¹And when they were come, and were gone up directly against the city, they stood on the North side of the city, between which and them was a valley in the midst.

¹²And five thousand men had he chosen, and set in the ambushments between Bethel and Hai, on the West side of the same city:

¹³but all the rest of the host went in battle array on the North side, so that the last of the multitude did reach to the West side of the city. Josue therefore went that night, and stood in the midst of the valley.

¹⁴Which when the king of Hai had seen, he made haste in the morning, and issued forth with all the host of the city, and bent his arm toward the desert, being ignorant that there lay embushments secretly behind his back.

¹⁵But Josue and all Israel gave back, feigning fear, and flying by the way of the wilderness.

¹⁶But they cried aloud together, & encouraging one another, pursued them. And when they were gone from the city,

¹⁷and not one remained in the city of Hai and Bethel that pursued not Israel (even as they had rushed out leaving the towns open,)

¹⁸our Lord said to Josue: Lift up the shield, that is in thy hand, against the city of Hai, for I will deliver it to thee.

¹⁹And when he had lifted up his shield against the city, the embushments, that lay hid, rose up immediately: and going to the city, took and burnt it.

²⁰And the men of the city, that pursued Josue, looking back & seeing the smoke of the city rise up even to heaven, they could no more fly hither and thither: especially whereas they, that had feigned running away, and went toward the wilderness, most valiantly resisted against the pursuers.

²¹And Josue and all Israel seeing that the city was taken, and the smoke of the city rose up, returning he struck the men of Hai.

²²For they also that had taken and burnt the city, issuing out of the city against their own men, began to strike the enemies in the midst of them. When the adversaries therefore were slain on both sides, so that none of so great a multitude was saved,

²³they took the king of the city of Hai alive, and presented him to Josue.

²⁴Therefore all being slain, that had pursued Israel flying to the deserts, and falling by the sword in the same place, the children of Israel returning struck the city.

²⁵And there were that fell that same day from man unto woman, twelve thousand men, all of the city of Hai.

²⁶But Josue plucked not in his hand, which he had stretched forth on high, holding the shield till all the inhabitants of Hai were slain.

²⁷And the cattle and the prey of the city the children of Israel divided among them, as our Lord had commanded Josue.

²⁸Who burnt the city, and made it a heap for ever:

²⁹the king also thereof he hung on a gibbet until evening and the going down of the sun. And he commanded, and they took down his corpse from the gibbet: and threw it in the very entering of the city, heaping upon it a great heap of stones, which remaineth until this present day.

³⁰Then Josue built an altar to our Lord the God of Israel in mount Hebal,

³¹as Moyses the servant of our Lord had commanded the children of Israel, and it is written in the volume of the law of Moyses: an Altar of unhewed stones which iron hath not touched; and he offered upon it holocausts to our Lord, and immolated pacific victims.

³²And he wrote upon stones the Deuteronomy of the law of Moyses, which he had ordered before the children of Israel.

³³And all the people, and the ancients, and the Princes and judges stood on both sides of the ark, in the sight of the Priests that carried the ark of the covenant of our Lord, as well the stranger as also the man of the same country. The half part of them beside mount Garizim and half beside mount Hebal, as Moyses the servant of our Lord had commanded. And first indeed he blessed the people of Israel.

³⁴After this he read all the words of the blessing and the cursing, and all things that were written in the volume of the law.

³⁵Nothing of those things, which Moyses had commanded, did he leave untouched, but he repeated all things before all the multitude of Israel, the women and children and strangers, that dwelt among them.