Judges 1–2

The Continuing Conquest of Canaan

1Now after the ^adeath of Joshua it came to pass that the children of Israel ^basked the Lord, saying, “Who shall be first to go up for us against the ^cCanaanites to fight against them?”

²And the Lord said, ^d“Judah shall go up. Indeed I have delivered the land into his hand.”

³So Judah said to ^eSimeon his brother, “Come up with me to my allotted territory, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and ^fI will likewise go with you to your allotted territory.” And Simeon went with him. ⁴Then Judah went up, and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand; and they killed ten thousand men at ^gBezek. ⁵And they found Adoni-Bezek in Bezek, and fought against him; and they defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. ⁶Then Adoni-Bezek fled, and they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. ⁷And Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to gather scraps under my table; ^has I have done, so God has repaid me.” Then they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.

⁸Now ⁱthe children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it; they struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire. ^9jAnd afterward the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the mountains, in the ¹South, and in the lowland. ¹⁰Then Judah ²went against the Canaanites who dwelt in ^kHebron. (Now the name of Hebron was formerly ^lKirjath Arba.) And they killed Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai.

^11mFrom there they went against the inhabitants of Debir. (The name of Debir was formerly Kirjath Sepher.)

¹²ⁿThen Caleb said, “Whoever attacks Kirjath Sepher and takes it, to him I will give my daughter Achsah as wife.” ¹³And Othniel the son of Kenaz, ^oCaleb’s younger brother, took it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah as wife. ^14pNow it happened, when she came to him, that ³she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you wish?” ¹⁵So she said to him, ^q“Give me a blessing; since you have given me land in the South, give me also springs of water.”

And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.

^16rNow the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up ^sfrom the City of Palms with the children of Judah into the Wilderness of Judah, which lies in the South near ^tArad; ^uand they went and dwelt among the people. ^17vAnd Judah went with his brother Simeon, and they attacked the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called ^wHormah. ¹⁸Also Judah took ^xGaza with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory. ¹⁹So the Lord was with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had ^ychariots of iron. ^20zAnd they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said. Then he ⁴expelled from there the ^athree sons of Anak. ^21bBut the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem; so the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

²²And the ⁵house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, ^cand the Lord was with them. ²³So the ⁶house of Joseph ^dsent men to spy out Bethel. (The name of the city was formerly ^eLuz.) ²⁴And when the spies saw a man coming out of the city, they said to him, “Please show us the entrance to the city, and ^fwe will show you mercy.” ²⁵So he showed them the entrance to the city, and they struck the city with the edge of the sword; but they let the man and all his family go. ²⁶And the man went to the land of the Hittites, built a city, and called its name Luz, which is its name to this day.

Incomplete Conquest of the Land

^27gHowever, Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shean and its villages, or ^hTaanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of ⁱDor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; for the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that land. ²⁸And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites ⁷under tribute, but did not completely drive them out.

^29jNor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; so the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.

³⁰Nor did ^kZebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron or the inhabitants of Nahalol; so the Canaanites dwelt among them, and ⁸were put under tribute.

^31lNor did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Acco or the inhabitants of Sidon, or of Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, or Rehob. ³²So the Asherites ^mdwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; for they did not drive them out.

³³ⁿNor did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh or the inhabitants of Beth Anath; but they dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath were put under tribute to them.

³⁴And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountains, for they would not allow them to come down to the valley; ³⁵and the Amorites were determined to dwell in Mount Heres, ^oin Aijalon, and in ⁹Shaalbim; yet when the strength of the house of Joseph became greater, they ¹were put under tribute.

³⁶Now the boundary of the Amorites was ^pfrom the Ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela, and upward.

Israel’s Disobedience

2Then the Angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: ^a“I led you up from Egypt and ^bbrought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and ^cI said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. ²And ^dyou shall make no ¹covenant with the inhabitants of this land; ^eyou shall tear down their altars.’ ^fBut you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this? ³Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they shall be ^gthorns ²in your side, and ^htheir gods shall ³be a ⁱsnare to you.’ ” ⁴So it was, when the Angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voices and wept.

⁵Then they called the name of that place ⁴Bochim; and they sacrificed there to the Lord. ⁶And when ^jJoshua had dismissed the people, the children of Israel went each to his own inheritance to possess the land.

Death of Joshua

^7kSo the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel. ⁸Now ^lJoshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was one hundred and ten years old. ^9mAnd they buried him within the border of his inheritance at ⁿTimnath Heres, in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash. ¹⁰When all that generation had ⁵been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who ^odid not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.

Israel’s Unfaithfulness

¹¹Then the children of Israel did ^pevil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals; ¹²and they ^qforsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed ^rother gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they ^sbowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger. ¹³They forsook the Lord ^tand served ⁶Baal and the ⁷Ashtoreths. ^14uAnd the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. So He ^vdelivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and ^wHe sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they ^xcould no longer stand before their enemies. ¹⁵Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had ^ysworn to them. And they were greatly distressed.

¹⁶Nevertheless, ^zthe Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. ¹⁷Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they ^aplayed the harlot with other gods, and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do so. ¹⁸And when the Lord raised up judges for them, ^bthe Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; ^cfor the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. ¹⁹And it came to pass, ^dwhen the judge was dead, that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.

²⁰Then the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and He said, “Because this nation has ^etransgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not heeded My voice, ²¹I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua ^fleft when he died, ²²so ^gthat through them I may ^htest Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the Lord, to walk in them as their fathers kept them, or not.” ²³Therefore the Lord left those nations, without driving them out immediately; nor did He deliver them into the hand of Joshua.