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Joshua 10:2
He and his people were very much alarmed at this, because Gibeon was an important city, like one of the royal cities; it was larger than Ai, and all its men were good fighters. (niv)
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Joshua 9:17
So the Israelites set out and on the third day came to their cities: Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth and Kiriath Jearim. (niv)
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2 Samuel 21 1-2 Samuel 21 2
During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord. The Lord said,“ It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them.( Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.) (niv)
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Joshua 8:1-35
Then the Lord said to Joshua,“ Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land.You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.”So Joshua and the whole army moved out to attack Ai. He chose thirty thousand of his best fighting men and sent them out at nightwith these orders:“ Listen carefully. You are to set an ambush behind the city. Don’t go very far from it. All of you be on the alert.I and all those with me will advance on the city, and when the men come out against us, as they did before, we will flee from them.They will pursue us until we have lured them away from the city, for they will say,‘ They are running away from us as they did before.’ So when we flee from them,you are to rise up from ambush and take the city. The Lord your God will give it into your hand.When you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do what the Lord has commanded. See to it; you have my orders.”Then Joshua sent them off, 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 with the people.Early the next morning Joshua mustered his army, and he and the leaders of Israel marched before them to Ai.The entire force that was with him marched up and approached the city and arrived in front of it. They set up camp north of Ai, with the valley between them and the city.Joshua had taken about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.So the soldiers took up their positions— with the main camp to the north of the city and the ambush to the west of it. That night Joshua went into the valley.When the king of Ai saw this, he and all the men of the city hurried out early in the morning to meet Israel in battle at a certain place overlooking the Arabah. But he did not know that an ambush had been set against him behind the city.Joshua and all Israel let themselves be driven back before them, and they fled toward the wilderness.All the men of Ai were called to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and were lured away from the city.Not a man remained in Ai or Bethel who did not go after Israel. They left the city open and went in pursuit of Israel.Then the Lord said to Joshua,“ Hold out toward Ai the javelin that is in your hand, for into your hand I will deliver the city.” So Joshua held out toward the city the javelin that was in his hand.As soon as he did this, the men in the ambush rose quickly from their position and rushed forward. They entered the city and captured it and quickly set it on fire.The men of Ai looked back and saw the smoke of the city rising up into the sky, but they had no chance to escape in any direction; the Israelites who had been fleeing toward the wilderness had turned back against their pursuers.For when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that smoke was going up from it, they turned around and attacked the men of Ai.Those in the ambush also came out of the city against them, so that they were caught in the middle, with Israelites on both sides. Israel cut them down, leaving them neither survivors nor fugitives.But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it.Twelve thousand men and women fell that day— all the people of Ai.For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed all who lived in Ai.But Israel did carry off for themselves the livestock and plunder of this city, as the Lord had instructed Joshua.So Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolate place to this day.He impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel,as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses— an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered to the Lord burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings.There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the law of Moses.All the Israelites, with their elders, officials and judges, were standing on both sides of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, facing the Levitical priests who carried it. Both the foreigners living among them and the native- born were there. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had formerly commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel.Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law— the blessings and the curses— just as it is written in the Book of the Law.There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the foreigners who lived among them. (niv)
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Joshua 6:1-27
Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.Then the Lord said to Joshua,“ See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them,“ Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.”And he ordered the army,“ Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord.”When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant followed them.The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding.But Joshua had commanded the army,“ Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!”So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the night there.Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord.The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding.So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times.The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army,“ Shout! For the Lord has given you the city!The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it.All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.”When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it— men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land,“ Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her.”So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord’s house.But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho— and she lives among the Israelites to this day.At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath:“ Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho:“ At the cost of his firstborn son he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates.”So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land. (niv)
