Judges 2–3

The Angel of the Lord at Bokim

2The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up from Egypt and led you to the land I promised to give your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my agreement with you. ²But you must not make an agreement with the people who live in this land. You must destroy their altars.’ But you did not obey me. How could you do this? ³Now I tell you, ‘I will not force out the people in this land. They will be your enemies, and their gods will be a trap for you.’ ”

⁴After the angel gave Israel this message from the Lord, they cried loudly. ⁵So they named the place Bokim. ⁿ There they offered sacrifices to the Lord.

Joshua Dies

⁶Then Joshua sent the people back to their land. ⁷The people served the Lord during the lifetime of Joshua and during the lifetimes of the elders who lived after Joshua and who had seen what great things the Lord had done for Israel. ⁸Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred ten. ⁹They buried him in his own land at Timnath Serah in the mountains of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

The People Disobey

¹⁰After those people had died, their children grew up and did not know the Lord or what he had done for Israel. ¹¹So they did what the Lord said was wrong, and they worshiped the Baal idols. ¹²They quit following the Lord, the God of their ancestors who had brought them out of Egypt. They began to worship the gods of the people who lived around them, and that made the Lord angry. ¹³The Israelites quit following the Lord and worshiped Baal and Ashtoreth. ¹⁴The Lord was angry with the people of Israel, so he handed them over to robbers who took their possessions. He let their enemies who lived around them defeat them; they could not protect themselves. ¹⁵When the Israelites went out to fight, they always lost, because the Lord was not with them. The Lord had sworn to them this would happen. So the Israelites suffered very much.

God Chooses Judges

¹⁶Then the Lord chose leaders called judges, ⁿ who saved the Israelites from the robbers. ¹⁷But the Israelites did not listen to their judges. They were not faithful to God but worshiped other gods instead. Their ancestors had obeyed the Lord’s commands, but they quickly turned away and did not obey. ¹⁸When their enemies hurt them, the Israelites cried for help. So the Lord felt sorry for them and sent judges to save them from their enemies. The Lord was with those judges all their lives. ¹⁹But when the judges died, the Israelites again sinned and worshiped other gods. They became worse than their ancestors. The Israelites were very stubborn and refused to change their evil ways.

²⁰So the Lord became angry with the Israelites. He said, “These people have broken the agreement I made with their ancestors. They have not listened to me. ²¹I will no longer defeat the nations who were left when Joshua died. ²²I will use them to test Israel, to see if Israel will keep the Lord’s commands as their ancestors did.” ²³In the past the Lord had permitted those nations to stay in the land. He did not quickly force them out or help Joshua’s army defeat them.

3These are the nations the Lord did not force to leave. He wanted to test the Israelites who had not fought in the wars of Canaan. ²(The only reason the Lord left those nations in the land was to teach the descendants of the Israelites who had not fought in those wars how to fight.) ³These are the nations: the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the people of Sidon, and the Hivites who lived in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. ⁴Those nations were in the land to test the Israelites—to see if they would obey the commands the Lord had given to their ancestors by Moses.

⁵The people of Israel lived with the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ⁶The Israelites began to marry the daughters of those people, and they allowed their daughters to marry the sons of those people. Israel also served their gods.

Othniel, the First Judge

⁷The Israelites did what the Lord said was wrong. They forgot about the Lord their God and served the idols of Baal and Asherah. ⁸So the Lord was angry with Israel and allowed Cushan-Rishathaim king of Northwest Mesopotamia to rule over the Israelites for eight years. ⁹When Israel cried to the Lord, the Lord sent someone to save them. Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, saved the Israelites. ¹⁰The Spirit of the Lord entered Othniel, and he became Israel’s judge. When he went to war, the Lord handed over to him Cushan-Rishathaim king of Northwest Mesopotamia. ¹¹So the land was at peace for forty years. Then Othniel son of Kenaz died.

Ehud, the Judge

¹²Again the people of Israel did what the Lord said was wrong. So the Lord gave Eglon king of Moab power to defeat Israel because of the evil Israel did. ¹³Eglon got the Ammonites and the Amalekites to join him. Then he attacked Israel and took Jericho, the city of palm trees. ¹⁴So the people of Israel were ruled by Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years.

¹⁵When the people cried to the Lord, he sent someone to save them. He was Ehud, son of Gera from the people of Benjamin, who was left-handed. Israel sent Ehud to give Eglon king of Moab the payment he demanded. ¹⁶Ehud made himself a sword with two edges, about eighteen inches long, and he tied it to his right hip under his clothes. ¹⁷Ehud gave Eglon king of Moab the payment he demanded. Now Eglon was a very fat man. ¹⁸After he had given Eglon the payment, Ehud sent away the people who had carried it. ¹⁹When he passed the statues near Gilgal, he turned around and said to Eglon, “I have a secret message for you, King Eglon.”

The king said, “Be quiet!” Then he sent all of his servants out of the room. ²⁰Ehud went to King Eglon, as he was sitting alone in the room above his summer palace.

Ehud said, “I have a message from God for you.” As the king stood up from his chair, ²¹Ehud reached with his left hand and took out the sword that was tied to his right hip. Then he stabbed the sword deep into the king’s belly! ²²Even the handle sank in, and the blade came out his back. The king’s fat covered the whole sword, so Ehud left the sword in Eglon. ²³Then he went out of the room and closed and locked the doors behind him.

²⁴When the servants returned just after Ehud left, they found the doors to the room locked. So they thought the king was relieving himself. ²⁵They waited for a long time. Finally they became worried because he still had not opened the doors. So they got the key and unlocked them and saw their king lying dead on the floor!

²⁶While the servants were waiting, Ehud had escaped. He passed by the statues and went to Seirah. ²⁷When he reached the mountains of Ephraim he blew the trumpet. The people of Israel heard it and went down from the hills with Ehud leading them.

²⁸He said to them, “Follow me! The Lord has helped you to defeat your enemies, the Moabites.” So Israel followed Ehud and captured the crossings of the Jordan River. They did not allow the Moabites to cross the Jordan River. ²⁹Israel killed about ten thousand strong and able men from Moab; not one escaped. ³⁰So that day Moab was forced to be under the rule of Israel, and there was peace in the land for eighty years.

Shamgar, the Judge

³¹After Ehud, Shamgar son of Anath saved Israel. Shamgar killed six hundred Philistines with a sharp stick used to guide oxen.