1. The Lord then said to Joshua: Do not be afraid or dismayed. Take all the army with you and prepare to attack Ai. I have delivered the king of Ai into your power, with his people, city, and land.
2. Do to Ai and its king what you did to Jericho and its king—except that you may take its spoil and livestock as plunder. Set an ambush behind the city.
3. So Joshua and all the soldiers prepared to attack Ai. Picking out thirty thousand warriors, Joshua sent them off by night
4. with these orders: “See that you ambush the city from the rear. Do not be very far from the city. All of you must be ready.
5. The rest of the people and I will come up to the city, and when they make a sortie against us as they did the last time, we will flee from them.
6. They will keep coming out after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will think, ‘They are fleeing from us as they did the last time.’ When we flee,
7. then you rise from ambush and take possession of the city, which the Lord, your God, will deliver into your power.
8. When you have taken the city, set it on fire in obedience to the Lord’s command. These are my orders to you.”
9. Then Joshua sent them away. They went to the place of ambush, taking up their position to the west of Ai, toward Bethel. Joshua, however, spent that night with the army.
10. Early the next morning Joshua mustered the army and went up to Ai at its head, with the elders of Israel.
11. When all the troops he led were drawn up in position before the city, they pitched camp north of Ai, on the other side of the ravine.