1And a messenger of Jehovah goeth up from Gilgal unto Bochim,

2and saith, 'I cause you to come up out of Egypt, and bring you in unto the land which I have sworn to your fathers, and say, I do not break My covenant with you to the age; and ye — ye make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land — their altars ye break down; and ye have not hearkened to My voice — what [is] this ye have done?

3And I also have said, I do not cast them out from your presence, and they have been to you for adversaries, and their gods are to you for a snare.'

4And it cometh to pass, when the messenger of Jehovah speaketh these words unto all the sons of Israel, that the people lift up their voice and weep,

5and they call the name of that place Bochim, and sacrifice there to Jehovah.

6And Joshua sendeth the people away, and the sons of Israel go, each to his inheritance, to possess the land;

7and the people serve Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who prolonged days after Joshua, who saw all the great work of Jehovah which He did to Israel.

8And Joshua son of Nun, servant of Jehovah, dieth, a son of a hundred and ten years,

9and they bury him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-Heres, in the hill-country of Ephraim, on the north of mount Gaash;

10and also all that generation have been gathered unto their fathers, and another generation riseth after them who have not known Jehovah, and even the work which He hath done to Israel.

11And the sons of Israel do the evil thing in the eyes of Jehovah, and serve the Baalim,

12and forsake Jehovah, God of their fathers, who bringeth them out from the land of Egypt, and go after other gods (of the gods of the peoples who [are] round about them), and bow themselves to them, and provoke Jehovah,

13yea, they forsake Jehovah, and do service to Baal and to Ashtaroth.

14And the anger of Jehovah burneth against Israel, and He giveth them into the hand of spoilers, and they spoil them, and He selleth them into the hand of their enemies round about, and they have not been able any more to stand before their enemies;

15in every [place] where they have gone out, the hand of Jehovah hath been against them for evil, as Jehovah hath spoken, and as Jehovah hath sworn to them, and they are distressed — greatly.

16And Jehovah raiseth up judges, and they save them from the hand of their spoilers;

17and also unto their judges they have not hearkened, but have gone a-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 Jehovah — they have not done so.

18And when Jehovah raised up to them judges — then was Jehovah with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it repenteth Jehovah, because of their groaning from the presence of their oppressors, and of those thrusting them away.

19And it hath come to pass, at the death of the judge — 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.

20And the anger of Jehovah doth burn against Israel, and He saith, 'Because that this nation have transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened to My voice —

21I also continue not to dispossess any from before them of the nations which Joshua hath left when he dieth,

22in order to try Israel by them, whether they are keeping the way of Jehovah, to go in it, as their fathers kept [it] or not.'

23And Jehovah leaveth these nations, so as not to dispossess them hastily, and did not give them into the hand of Joshua.