Judges 2:6–3:6

⁶And Joshua dismissed the people, and the children of Israel went every man to his inheritance to possess the land. ⁷And the people served Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders whose days were prolonged after Joshua, who had seen all the great works of Jehovah, which he had done for Israel. ⁸And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Jehovah, died, a hundred and ten years old. ⁹And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-Heres, in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the mountain of Gaash. ¹⁰And also all that generation were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them, which knew not Jehovah, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. ¹¹And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and served the Baals. ¹²And they forsook Jehovah the God of their fathers, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods of the gods of the peoples that were round about them, and bowed themselves to them, and provoked Jehovah to anger. ¹³And they forsook Jehovah, and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. ¹⁴And the anger of Jehovah was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about; and they could not any longer stand before their enemies. ¹⁵Whithersoever they went out the hand of Jehovah was against them for evil, as Jehovah had said, and as Jehovah had sworn unto them; and they were greatly distressed. ¹⁶And Jehovah raised up judges, and they saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. ¹⁷But they did not even hearken to their judges, for they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves to them; they turned quickly out of the way that their fathers had walked in, obeying the commandments of Jehovah; they did not so. ¹⁸And when Jehovah raised them up judges, then Jehovah was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it repented Jehovah because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and crushed them. ¹⁹And it came to pass when the judge died, that they turned back and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down to them: they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way. ²⁰And the anger of Jehovah was hot against Israel; and he said, Because this nation hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and hath not hearkened unto my voice, ²¹I also will not henceforth dispossess from before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died; ²²that through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of Jehovah to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not. ²³Therefore Jehovah left those nations, without dispossessing them hastily, neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.

Chapter 3

¹And these are the nations that Jehovah left, to prove Israel by them, all that had not known all the wars of Canaan; ²only that the generations of the children of Israel might know war by learning it, at the least those who before had known nothing thereof: ³five lord ships of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites that dwell on mount Lebanon; from mount Baal-Hermon unto the entering into Hamath. ⁴And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of Jehovah, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. ⁵And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites: Hittites and Amorites and Perizzites and Hivites and Jebusites; ⁶and they took their daughters as wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods.