A Divine Decision

2:20 The Lord was furious with Israel.53 He said, “This nation54 has violated the terms of the agreement I made with their ancestors55 by disobeying me.56 2:21 So I will no longer remove before them any of the nations that Joshua left unconquered when he died. 2:22 Joshua left those nations57 to test58 Israel. I wanted to see59 whether or not the people60 would carefully walk in the path61 marked out by62 the Lord, as their ancestors63 were careful to do.” 2:23 This is why64 the Lord permitted these nations to remain and did not conquer them immediately;65 he did not hand them over to Joshua.

3:1 These were the nations the Lord permitted to remain so he could use them to test Israel—he wanted to test all those who had not experienced battle against the Canaanites.1 3:2 He left those nations simply because he wanted to teach the subsequent generations of Israelites, who had not experienced the earlier battles, how to conduct holy war.2 3:3 These were the nations:3 the five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo-Hamath.4 3:4 They were left to test Israel, so the Lord would know if his people would obey the commands he gave their ancestors through Moses.5

3:5 The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 3:6 They took the Canaanites’ daughters as wives and gave their daughters to the Canaanites;6 they worshiped7 their gods as well.