6Joshua sent the people away, and the sons of Israel went, each man to his inheritance, to possess the land.7The people served the LORD all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who prolonged days after Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had done for Israel.8Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of one hundred and ten years.9They buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.10All that generation also was gathered to their fathers, and another generation arose after them that did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.11The sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals.12They abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them; they bowed down to them and provoked the LORD to anger.13They abandoned the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.14The anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them; he sold them into the hands of their enemies from around, and they were no longer able to stand before their enemies.15Whenever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, just as the LORD had spoken and just as the LORD had sworn to them, and they were in great distress.16The LORD raised up judges, and they saved them from the hand of those who plundered them.17Yet they did not listen even to their judges, for they prostituted themselves after other gods and bowed down to them; they soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked in obedience to the commandments of the LORD; they did not do so.18Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge and saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, because the LORD had compassion on them because of their groan before those who oppressed them and those who crushed them.19And it happened when the judge died, they returned and acted corruptly more than their fathers by going after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them; they did not fall away from their deeds or from their stubborn way.20So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he said, Because this nation has transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and has not obeyed my voice,21I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died,22in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the LORD by walking in it as their fathers kept it, or not.23So the LORD left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.
Chapter 3
1Now these are the nations that the LORD left to test Israel by them, all who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan,2only that the generations of the sons of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before.3The five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwell in the hill country of Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath.4They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the LORD, which he had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.5So the sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.6They took their daughters as wives for themselves, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.