¹After the death of Joshua the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” ²The Lord said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.” ³And Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into the territory allotted to me, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with you into the territory allotted to you.” So Simeon went with him. ⁴Then Judah went up and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand; and they defeated ten thousand of them at Bezek. ⁵They came upon Adoni-bezek at Bezek, and fought against him, and defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. ⁶Adoni-bezek fled; but they pursued him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes. ⁷And Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and their great toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has requited me.” And they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

⁸And the men of Judah fought against Jerusalem, and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire. ⁹And afterward the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the hill country, in the Negeb, and in the lowland. ¹⁰And Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron (now the name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath-arba); and they defeated Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai.

¹¹From there they went against the inhabitants of Debir. The name of Debir was formerly Kiriath-sepher. ¹²And Caleb said, “He who attacks Kiriath-sepher and takes it, I will give him Achsah my daughter as wife.” ¹³And Othni-el the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it; and he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife. ¹⁴When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field; and she alighted from her ass, and Caleb said to her, “What do you wish?” ¹⁵She said to him, “Give me a present; since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.

¹⁶And the descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up with the people of Judah from the city of palms into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the Negeb near Arad; and they went and settled with the people. ¹⁷And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they defeated the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Hormah. ¹⁸Judah also took Gaza with its territory, and Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory. ¹⁹And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron. ²⁰And Hebron was given to Caleb, as Moses had said; and he drove out from it the three sons of Anak. ²¹But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who dwelt in Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have dwelt with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

²²The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel; and the Lord was with them. ²³And the house of Joseph sent to spy out Bethel. (Now the name of the city was formerly Luz.) ²⁴And the spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him, “Pray, show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.” ²⁵And he showed them the way into the city; and they smote 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 and built a city, and called its name Luz; that is its name to this day.

²⁷Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taa-nach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. ²⁸When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out.

²⁹And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.

³⁰Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, or the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites dwelt among them, and became subject to forced labor.

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

³³Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, or the inhabitants of Beth-anath, but dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them.

³⁴The Amorites pressed the Danites back into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the plain; ³⁵the Amorites persisted in dwelling in Har-heres, in Aijalon, and in Sha-albim, but the hand of the house of Joseph rested heavily upon them, and they became subject to forced labor. ³⁶And the border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela and upward.

Chapter 2

¹Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you into the land which I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, ²and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my command. What is this you have done? ³So now I say, I will not drive them out before you; but they shall become adversaries to you, and their gods shall be a snare to you.” ⁴When the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. ⁵And they called the name of that place Bochim; and they sacrificed there to the Lord.

⁶When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. ⁷And 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 work which the Lord had done for Israel. ⁸And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten years. ⁹And they buried him within the bounds of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. ¹⁰And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them, who did not know the Lord or the work which he had done for Israel.

¹¹And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals; ¹²and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were round about them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger. ¹³They forsook the Lord, and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. ¹⁴So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them; and he sold them into the power of their enemies round about, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. ¹⁵Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them; and they were in sore straits.

¹⁶Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the power of those who plundered them. ¹⁷And yet they did not listen to their judges; for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed down to them; they soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. ¹⁸Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. ¹⁹But whenever the judge died, they turned back and behaved worse than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them; they did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. ²⁰So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel; and he said, “Because this people have transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not obeyed my voice, ²¹I will not henceforth drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, ²²that by them I may test Israel, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did, or not.” ²³So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out at once, and he did not give them into the power of Joshua.

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