Judges 2:6–3:6

⁶And Joshua sendeth the people away, and the sons of Israel go, each to his inheritance, to possess the land; ⁷and the people serve Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who prolonged days after Joshua, who saw all the great work of Jehovah which He did to Israel. ⁸And Joshua son of Nun, servant of Jehovah, dieth, a son of a hundred and ten years, ⁹and they bury him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-Heres, in the hill-country of Ephraim, on the north of mount Gaash; ¹⁰and also all that generation have been gathered unto their fathers, and another generation riseth after them who have not known Jehovah, and even the work which He hath done to Israel. ¹¹And the sons of Israel do the evil thing in the eyes of Jehovah, and serve the Baalim, ¹²and forsake Jehovah, God of their fathers, who bringeth them out from the land of Egypt, and go after other gods (of the gods of the peoples who are round about them), and bow themselves to them, and provoke Jehovah, ¹³yea, they forsake Jehovah, and do service to Baal and to Ashtaroth. ¹⁴And the anger of Jehovah burneth against Israel, and He giveth them into the hand of spoilers, and they spoil them, and He selleth them into the hand of their enemies round about, and they have not been able any more to stand before their enemies; ¹⁵in every place where they have gone out, the hand of Jehovah hath been against them for evil, as Jehovah hath spoken, and as Jehovah hath sworn to them, and they are distressed—greatly. ¹⁶And Jehovah raiseth up judges, and they save them from the hand of their spoilers; ¹⁷and also unto their judges they have not hearkened, but have gone a-whoring after other gods, and bow themselves to them; they have turned aside with haste out of the way in which their fathers walked to obey the commands of Jehovah—they have not done so. ¹⁸And when Jehovah raised up to them judges—then was Jehovah with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it repenteth Jehovah, because of their groaning from the presence of their oppressors, and of those thrusting them away. ¹⁹And it hath come to pass, at the death of the judge—they turn back and have done corruptly above their fathers, to go after other gods, to serve them, and to bow themselves to them; they have not fallen from their doings, and from their stiff way. ²⁰And the anger of Jehovah doth burn against Israel, and He saith, ‘Because that this nation have transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened to My voice— ²¹I also continue not to dispossess any from before them of the nations which Joshua hath left when he dieth, ²²in order to try Israel by them, whether they are keeping the way of Jehovah, to go in it, as their fathers kept it or not.’ ²³And Jehovah leaveth these nations, so as not to dispossess them hastily, and did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

Chapter 3

¹And these are the nations which Jehovah left, to try Israel by them, all who have not known all the wars of Canaan; ²(only for the sake of the generations of the sons of Israel’s knowing, to teach them war, only those who formerly have not known them)— ³five princes of the Philistines, and all the Canaanite, and the Zidonian, and the Hivite inhabiting mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath; ⁴and they are to prove Israel by them, to know whether they obey the commands of Jehovah that He commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. ⁵And the sons of Israel have dwelt in the midst of the Canaanite, the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, ⁶and take their daughters to them for wives, and their daughters have given to their sons, and they serve their gods;