Judges 2

¹ The angel of Yahweh went up from Gilgal to Bethel and came to the House of Israel; and he said,’… and I brought you out of Egypt and led you into this land which I swore to give your fathers. I said: I shall never break my covenant with you.

² You for your part must make no covenant with the inhabitants of this country; you must destroy their altars. But you have not obeyed my orders. What is it that you have done?

³ Very well, I now say this: I am not going to drive out these nations before you. They shall become your oppressors, and their gods shall be a snare for you.’

⁴ When the angel of Yahweh had spoken these words to all the Israelites, the people began to groan and weep.

⁵ And they called the name of the place Bochim,[*a] and offered sacrifices to Yahweh there.

⁶ Then Joshua told the people to go, and the Israelites went away, each to his own possession, to occupy the land.

⁷ The people served Yahweh throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the lifetime of those elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the great deeds that Yahweh had done for the sake of Israel.

⁸ Joshua son of Nun, the servant of Yahweh, died when he was a hundred and ten years old.

⁹ They buried him on the estate he had received for inheritance, at Timnath-heres in the highlands of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

¹⁰ And when that generation too had been gathered to its fathers, another generation followed it which knew neither Yahweh nor the deeds that he had done for the sake of Israel.

¹¹ Then the sons of Israel did what displeases Yahweh and served the Baals.

¹² They deserted Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from the gods of the peoples round them. They bowed down to these; they provoked Yahweh;

¹³ they deserted Yahweh to serve Baal and Astarte.[*b]

¹⁴ Then Yahweh’s anger flamed out against Israel. He handed them over to pillagers who plundered them; he delivered them to the enemies surrounding them, and they were not able to resist them.

¹⁵ In every warlike venture, the hand of Yahweh was there to foil them, as Yahweh had warned, as Yahweh had sworn to them. Thus he reduced them to dire distress.

¹⁶ Then Yahweh appointed judges[*c] for them, and rescued the men of Israel from the hands of their plunderers.

¹⁷ But they would not listen to their judges. They prostituted themselves to other gods, and bowed down before these. Very quickly they left the path their ancestors had trodden in obedience to the orders of Yahweh; they did not follow their example.

¹⁸ When Yahweh appointed judges for them, Yahweh was with the judge and rescued them from the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived, for Yahweh felt pity for them as they groaned under the iron grip of their oppressors.

¹⁹ But once the judge was dead, they relapsed and behaved even worse than their ancestors. They followed other gods; they served them and bowed before them, and would not give up the practices and stubborn ways of their ancestors at all

²⁰ Then Yahweh’s anger flamed out against Israel, and he said, ‘Since this people has broken the covenant I laid down for their ancestors, since they have not listened to my voice,

²¹ in future I will not evict any of the nations that Joshua left in the land when he died’;

²² this was to test them by means of these nations, to see whether Israel would or would not tread the paths of Yahweh as once their ancestors had trodden them.

²³ So Yahweh allowed these nations to remain; he did not hurry to drive them out, and did not deliver them into the hands of Joshua.