< Judges 2 >
1 And the Messenger of YHWH goes up from Gilgal to Bochim,
2 and says, “I cause you to come up out of Egypt, and bring you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers, and say, I do not break My covenant with you for all time; and you make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land—you break down their altars; and you have not listened to My voice—what [is] this you have done?
3 And I have also said, I do not cast them out from your presence, and they have been for adversaries to you, and their gods are for a snare to you.”
4 And it comes to pass, when the Messenger of YHWH speaks these words to all the sons of Israel, that the people lift up their voice and weep,
5 and they call the name of that place Bochim, and sacrifice to YHWH there.
6 And Joshua sends the people away, and the sons of Israel go, each to his inheritance, to possess the land;
7 and the people serve YHWH all [the] days of Joshua, and all [the] days of [the] elderly who prolonged days after Joshua, who saw all the great work of YHWH which He did to Israel.
8 And Joshua son of Nun, servant of YHWH, dies, a son of one hundred and ten years,
9 and they bury him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-Heres, in the hill-country of Ephraim, on the north of Mount Gaash;
10 and all that generation have also been gathered to their fathers, and another generation rises after them who have not known YHWH, and even the work which He has done to Israel.
11 And the sons of Israel do evil in the eyes of YHWH, and serve the Ba‘alim,
12 and forsake YHWH, God of their fathers, who brings them out from the land of Egypt, and go after other gods (of the gods of the peoples who [are] around them), and bow themselves to them, and provoke YHWH,
13 indeed, they forsake YHWH, and do service to Ba‘al and to Ashtaroth.
14 And the anger of YHWH burns against Israel, and He gives them into the hand of spoilers, and they spoil them, and He sells them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, and they have not been able to stand before their enemies anymore;
15 in every [place] where they have gone out, the hand of YHWH has been against them for calamity, as YHWH has spoken, and as YHWH has sworn to them, and they are greatly distressed.
16 And YHWH raises up judges, and they save them from the hand of their spoilers;
17 and they have also not listened to their judges, but have gone 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 YHWH—they have not done so.
18 And when YHWH raised up judges for them—then YHWH was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all [the] days of the judge; for YHWH sighs, because of their groaning from the presence of their oppressors, and of those thrusting them away.
19 And it has come to pass, when the judge dies—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.
20 And the anger of YHWH burns against Israel, and He says, “Because that this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not listened to My voice—
21 I also do not continue to dispossess any from before them of the nations which Joshua has left when he dies,
22 in order to try Israel by them, whether they are keeping the way of YHWH, to go in it, as their fathers kept [it], or not.”
23 And YHWH leaves these nations, so as not to dispossess them quickly, and did not give them into the hand of Joshua.
