Judges 2–3

The Angel of the at Bochim

2The angel of the Lord went from Gilgal to Bochim and said to the Israelites, “I took you out of Egypt and brought you to the land that I promised to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you. ^2*You must not make any covenant with the people who live in this land. You must tear down their altars.’ But you have not done what I told you. You have done just the opposite! ³So I tell you now that I will not drive these people out as you advance. They will be your enemies,^f and you will be trapped by the worship of their gods.” ⁴When the angel had said this, all the people of Israel began to cry, ⁵and that is why the place is called Bochim.^g There they offered sacrifices to the Lord.

The Death of Joshua

⁶Joshua sent the people of Israel on their way, and each man went to take possession of his own share of the land. ⁷As long as Joshua lived, the people of Israel served the Lord, and after his death they continued to do so as long as the leaders were alive who had seen for themselves all the great things that the Lord had done for Israel. ⁸The Lord’s servant Joshua son of Nun died at the age of 110. ^9*He was buried in his own part of the land at Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim north of Mount Gaash. ¹⁰That whole generation also died, and the next generation forgot the Lord and what he had done for Israel.

Israel Stops Worshipping the

¹¹Then the people of Israel sinned against the Lord and began to serve the Baals. ¹²They stopped worshipping the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God who had brought them out of Egypt, and they began to worship other gods, the gods of the peoples round them. They bowed down to them and made the Lord angry. ¹³They stopped worshipping the Lord and served the Baals and the Astartes. ¹⁴And so the Lord became furious with Israel and let raiders attack and rob them. He let enemies all around overpower them, and the Israelites could no longer protect themselves. ¹⁵Every time they went into battle, the Lord was against them, just as he had said he would be. They were in great distress.

¹⁶Then the Lord gave the Israelites leaders who saved them from the raiders. ¹⁷But the Israelites paid no attention to their leaders. Israel was unfaithful to the Lord and worshipped other gods. Their fathers had obeyed the Lord’s commands, but this new generation soon stopped doing so. ¹⁸Whenever the Lord gave Israel a leader, the Lord would help that leader and would save the people from their enemies as long as that leader lived. The Lord would have mercy on them because they groaned under their suffering and oppression. ¹⁹But when the leader died, the people used to return to the old ways and behave worse than the previous generation. They would serve and worship other gods, and refused to give up their own evil ways. ²⁰Then the Lord would become furious with Israel and say, “This nation has broken the covenant that I commanded their ancestors to keep. Because they have not obeyed me, ²¹I will no longer drive out any of the nations that were still in the land when Joshua died. ²²I will use them to find out whether or not these Israelites will follow my ways, as their ancestors did.” ²³So the Lord allowed those nations to remain in the land; he did not give Joshua victory over them, nor did he drive them out soon after Joshua’s death.

The Nations Remaining in the Land

3So then, the Lord left some nations in the land to test the Israelites who had not been through the wars in Canaan. ²He did this only in order to teach each generation of Israelites about war, especially those who had never been in battle before. ³Those left in the land were the five Philistine cities, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived in the Lebanon Mountains from Mount Baal Hermon as far as Hamath Pass. ⁴They were to be a test for Israel, to find out whether or not the Israelites would obey the commands that the Lord had given their ancestors through Moses. ⁵And so the people of Israel settled down among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁶They intermarried with them and worshipped their gods.

Othniel

⁷The people of Israel forgot the Lord their God; they sinned against him and worshipped the idols of Baal and Asherah. ⁸So the Lord became angry with Israel and let King Cushan Rishathaim of Mesopotamia conquer them, and he ruled over them for eight years. ⁹Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he sent a man who freed them. This was Othniel, the son of Caleb’s younger brother Kenaz. ¹⁰The spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he became Israel’s leader. Othniel went to war, and the Lord gave him victory over the king of Mesopotamia. ¹¹There was peace in the land for 40 years, and then Othniel died.

Ehud

¹²The people of Israel sinned against the Lord again. Because of this the Lord made King Eglon of Moab stronger than Israel. ¹³Eglon joined the Ammonites and the Amalekites; they defeated Israel and captured Jericho, the city of palm trees. ¹⁴The Israelites were subject to Eglon for eighteen years.

¹⁵Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he sent a man to free them. This was Ehud, a left-handed man, who was the son of Gera, from the tribe of Benjamin. The people of Israel sent Ehud to King Eglon of Moab with gifts for him. ¹⁶Ehud had made himself a double-edged sword nearly 50 centimetres long. He had it fastened on his right side under his clothes. ¹⁷Then he took the gifts to Eglon, who was a very fat man. ¹⁸When Ehud had given him the gifts, he told the men who had carried them to go back home. ¹⁹But Ehud himself turned back at the carved stones near Gilgal, went back to Eglon, and said, “Your Majesty, I have a secret message for you.”

So the king ordered his servants, “Leave us alone!” And they all went out.

²⁰Then, as the king was sitting there alone in his cool room on the roof, Ehud went over to him and said, “I have a message from God for you.” The king stood up. ²¹With his left hand Ehud took the sword from his right side and plunged it into the king’s belly. ²²The whole sword went in, handle and all, and the fat covered it up. Ehud did not pull it out of the king’s belly, and it stuck out behind, between his legs.^{h 23}Then Ehud went outside, closed the doors behind him, locked them, ²⁴and left. The servants came and saw that the doors were locked, but they only thought that the king was inside, relieving himself. ²⁵They waited as long as they thought they should, but when he still did not open the door, they took the key and opened it. And there was their master, lying dead on the floor.

²⁶Ehud got away while they were waiting. He went past the carved stones and escaped to Seirah. ²⁷When he arrived there in the hill country of Ephraim, he blew a trumpet to call the men of Israel to battle; then he led them down from the hills. ²⁸He said, “Follow me! The Lord has given you victory over your enemies, the Moabites.” So they followed Ehud down and captured the place where the Moabites were to cross the Jordan; they did not allow a single man to cross. ²⁹That day they killed about 10,000 of the best Moabite soldiers; none of them escaped. ³⁰That day the Israelites defeated Moab, and there was peace in the land for 80 years.

Shamgar

³¹The next leader was Shamgar son of Anath. He too rescued Israel, and did so by killing 600 Philistines with an ox goad.