< Judges 2 >
1 The angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim. He said, "I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore to your fathers; and I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you:
2 and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.' But you have not listened to my voice: why have you done this?
3 Therefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they will become your adversaries, and their gods shall be a snare to you."
4 It happened, when the angel of the LORD spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept.
5 They called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there to the LORD.
6 Now when Joshua had sent the people away, the children of Israel went every man to his inheritance to possess the land.
7 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 of the LORD that he had worked for Israel.
8 Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being one hundred ten years old.
9 They buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath Serah, in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash.
10 And all that generation were also gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor the works which he had done for Israel.
11 The children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals;
12 and they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them: and they provoked the LORD to anger.
13 They forsook the LORD, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.
14 The anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of marauders who plundered them; and he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.
15 Wherever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had spoken, and as the LORD had sworn to them: and they were in great distress.
16 The LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.
17 Yet they did not listen to their judges; for they played the prostitute after other gods, and bowed themselves down to them: they turned aside quickly out of the way in which their fathers walked, obeying the commandments of the LORD; but they did not do so.
18 When the LORD raised up judges for them, then the LORD was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it grieved the LORD because of their groaning by reason of those who oppressed them and troubled them.
19 But it happened, when the judge was dead, that they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down to them; they did not cease from their practices, and they did not turn aside from their stubborn ways.
20 The anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel; and he said, "Because this nation has transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not obeyed my voice;
21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died;
22 that by them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk in it, as their fathers kept it, or not."
23 So the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.
