³ They returned and said to Joshua, “You should not send the entire nation there, only send about two or three thousand men against Ai to conquer it. You should not bother the whole nation, for there are not that many of them. ⁴ So about three thousand men went up there, and they had to flee from before the men of Ai. ⁵ The men of Ai killed about thirty-six of them when they chased them from their gates all the way down to Shebarim. They killed them as they ran down the slopes, and the people’s courage melted away like water.