What do I see?” ¹  says the Lord. ²  “The soldiers ³  are terrified. They are retreating. They have been defeated. They are overcome with terror; ⁴  they desert quickly without looking back.

The Philistines ¹  abandoned their idols ²  there, and David and his men picked them up.

They will attack ¹  us until we have lured them from the city, for they will say, ‘They are retreating from us like before.’ We will retreat from them.

When the men of Ai turned around, they saw ¹  the smoke from the city ascending into the sky and were so shocked they were unable to flee in any direction. ²  In the meantime the men who were retreating to the desert turned against their pursuers.

Then the Benjaminites saw they were defeated. The Israelites retreated before ¹  Benjamin, because they had confidence in the men they had hid in ambush outside Gibeah.

The men of Ai killed about thirty-six of them and chased them from in front of the city gate all the way to the fissures ¹  and defeated them on the steep slope. ²  The people’s ³  courage melted away like water. ⁴