Judges 2
1SO there went up a messenger of the Lord from Galgal to Wailing, namely to Baithel, to the house of Israel, and said to them, Thus saith the Lord: I caused you to come up out of Egypt, and brought you into this land which I solemnly promised your fathers, and I said I will never break My covenant with you;
2therefore you shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land, nor worship their gods; but you shall break to pieces their graven images, and demolish their altars. But you have not hearkened to My voice. Because you have done these things,
3therefore I have said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be curbs for you; and their gods shall be to you a stumbling block.
4And when the messenger of the Lord had spoken these words to all the children of Israel, the people wept aloud.
5So they called the name of that place, Wailing, and there they sacrificed to the Lord.
6Now when Joshua had dismissed the people, and every man had gone to his inheritance to take possession of the land,
7though the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who had lived long with Joshua, and who knew all the great works which the Lord had done for Israel;
8yet when Joshua, son of Naue, the servant of the Lord, died, at the age of a hundred and ten years,
9and they had buried him in the border of his inheritance at Thamnathares, on mount Ephraim, on the north side of mount Gaas;
10and all that generation was gathered to their fathers, and another generation arose after them, who knew not the Lord, nor the works which He had done for Israel,
11the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baalims.
12They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and went after other gods, after some of the gods of the nations around, and worshipped them, and provoked the Lord to wrath.
13So when they forsook Him, and served Baal, and the Astartes,
14the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of spoilers, who spoiled them, and sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.
15Wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had spoken, and as the Lord had solemnly denounced to them. But when He had afflicted them grievously,
16the Lord raised up Judges, and the Lord saved them out of the hands of those who spoiled them.
17When they indeed hearkened not to the judges, because they went a-whoring after other gods, and worshipped them, and turned aside quickly out of the way in which their fathers had walked—did not act in obedience to the commands of the Lord;
18still because the Lord raised up judges for them, therefore the Lord was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, because the Lord was mollified by their groaning, by reason of them who oppressed them and afflicted them.
19But when the judge died, and they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, by going after other gods to serve them, and worship them, and would not quit their devices, nor their perverse ways,
20then was the anger of the Lord kindled against Israel, and he said, Because this nation have forsaken My covenant, which I gave in charge to their fathers, and have not hearkened to My voice,
21therefore I will not henceforth drive out from before them a man of those nations which Joshua, son of Nave, left in the land.
22He indeed had spared them, that by them He might prove Israel whether they would, or would not, keep the ways of the Lord to walk therein, as their fathers had kept them; and having determined to spare those nations so as not to root them out speedily, the Lord did not deliver them into the hands of Joshua.