Question X. Achan's sacrilege being so hidden, how was it detected?

Nothing is so hidden that it will not at some time be laid open. And Achan’s sacrilege was laid open and detected in a sixfold way. First: by the public loss. Secondly: by God’s entreaty and interrogation. Thirdly: by God’s response. Fourthly: by the lot. Fifthly: by Achan’s own confession. Sixthly: at last, by the eyewitness finding of the things he had hidden away. For when an expedition had been undertaken against the neighboring city of Ai, and it had accomplished nothing — nay rather had brought loss and disaster — this disaster begot grief and mourning in the whole army of the Israelites; the grief and mourning [begot] humble prayers to God, and an interrogation of the causes of so great an evil; the interrogation [begot] a response; the response, the casting of the lot; the lot, the confession of the sacrilege itself; the confession, the finding of the sacrileges, and a beholding placed beyond all doubt — as all [these things] are narrated in the text.