8:6a

It is recommended that you begin a new sentence here.

They will pursue us: The clause They will pursue us indicates that the soldiers of Ai will come out of their town and chase the Israelites when they run away.

8:6b

until we have drawn them away from the city: The clause until we have drawn them away from the city indicates that the Israelite soldiers continued to run away until the soldiers of Ai were far from their town.

until: The English word until can also be spelled “till” as in most English versions.

have drawn them away: The expression drawn them away indicates that they lured them or enticed them to leave.

Here is another way to translate this phrase:

we will trick them into going far from their town

8:6c

for: The word for introduces the reason why the citizens of Ai left the town in 8:6a-b. Use a natural way in your language to indicate reason. It is recommended that you begin a new sentence here.

they will say, ‘The Israelites are running away from us as they did before.’: The clause they will say introduces what the soldiers of Ai would think and say to each other. In some languages it might be more natural to use an indirect quote. For example:

They will pursue us until we have led them away from the city. They will think that we are running from them, as we did before. (Good News Translation)

as they did before: The citizens of Ai assumed that the Israelites would act the same way that they did the first time.

8:6d

So as we flee from them: The clause So as we flee from them repeats information that Joshua stated in verse 8:5c. Even though this phrase is at the end of a verse, it is the beginning of a new sentence. For example:

6d So when we flee from them, 7a you are to rise up from ambush and take the town, (New International Version)

© 2001, 2011, 2020, 2022, 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.