1And the Angel of Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you; and as for you,

2ye shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not hearkened unto my voice. Why have ye done this?

3Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be [scourges] in your sides, and their ¹gods shall be a snare unto you.

4And it came to pass, when the Angel of Jehovah spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept.

5And they called the name of that place Bochim; and they sacrificed there to Jehovah.

6And Joshua dismissed the people, and the children of Israel went every man to his inheritance to possess the land.

7And the people served Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders whose days were prolonged after Joshua, who had seen all the great works of Jehovah, which he had done for Israel.

8And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Jehovah, died, a hundred and ten years old.

9And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-Heres, in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the mountain of Gaash.

10And also all that generation were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them, which knew not Jehovah, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.

11And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and served the Baals.

12And they forsook Jehovah the ²God of their fathers, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and followed other ³gods of the ⁴gods of the peoples that were round about them, and bowed themselves to them, and provoked Jehovah to anger.

13And they forsook Jehovah, and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

14And the anger of Jehovah was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about; and they could not any longer stand before their enemies.

15Whithersoever they went out the hand of Jehovah was against them for evil, as Jehovah had said, and as Jehovah had sworn unto them; and they were greatly distressed.

16And Jehovah raised up judges, and they saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.

17But they did not even hearken to their judges, for they went a whoring after other ⁵gods, and bowed themselves to them; they turned quickly out of the way that their fathers had walked in, obeying the commandments of Jehovah; they did not so.

18And when Jehovah raised them up judges, then Jehovah was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it repented Jehovah because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and crushed them.

19And it came to pass when the judge died, that they turned back and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other ⁶gods to serve them, and to bow down to them: they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way.

20And the anger of Jehovah was hot against Israel; and he said, Because this nation hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and hath not hearkened unto my voice,

21I also will not henceforth dispossess from before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died;

22that through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of Jehovah to walk therein, as their fathers did keep [it], or not.

23Therefore Jehovah left those nations, without dispossessing them hastily, neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.