Now Yehoshua sent men from Yeriḥo to Ai, which is beside Bĕyth Awen, on the east side of Bĕyth Ěl, and spoke to them, saying, “Go up and spy out the land.” And the men went up and spied out Ai.
And their border was on the north side from the Yardĕn, and the border went up to the side of Yeriḥo on the north, and went up through the mountains westward, and ended at the Wilderness of Bĕyth Awen.
“Though you are a whore, Yisra’ĕl, let not Yehuḏah become guilty. Do not come up to Gilgal, nor go up to Bĕyth Awen, nor swear an oath, saying, ‘As יהוה lives!’
And the Philistines gathered to fight Yisra’ĕl, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen, and people as numerous as the sand on the seashore. And they came up and encamped in Miḵmash, east of Bĕyth Awen.
And from there he moved to the mountain east of Bĕyth Ěl, and he pitched his tent, with Bĕyth Ěl on the west and Ai on the east. And he built there a slaughter-place to יהוה, and called on the Name of יהוה.
And Yehoshua son of Nun secretly sent out two men from Shittim to spy, saying, “Go, see the land, and Yeriḥo.” And they went, and came to the house of a woman, a whore, and her name was Raḥaḇ, and they lay down there.
And they returned to Yehoshua and said to him, “Let not all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and strike Ai. Do not make all the people toil up there, for the people of Ai are few.”
“Howl, O Ḥeshbon, for Ai is ravaged! Cry, daughters of Rabbah, gird on sackcloth! Lament and diligently search by the walls, for Malkam shall go into exile, with his priests and his heads.