Judges 2

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.