Judges 2

1

And the angel of Yahweh ascended from Gilgal unto Bokim, and said: I ascended you from Egypt, and brought you unto the land that I have sworn to your fathers, and said I will not break my covenant with you, unto the age;

2

and ye, ye shall cut no covenant with the dwellers of this land; their altars ye shall tear down. And ye have not heard my voice—what is this ye have done?

3

And I also have said: I will not drive them out before you, and they shall be unto your sides, and their gods shall be unto you a snare.

4

And it came to be, when the angel of Yahweh had spoken these words unto all the sons of Israel, that the people bore up their voice and wept, 5 and they called the name of that standing¹ Bokim, and sacrificed there to Yahweh.

6

And Joshua sent away the people, and the sons of Israel went, each to his inheritance, to possess the land;

7

and the people served Yahweh all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who prolonged days after Joshua, who saw all the great work of Yahweh which he had done unto Israel.

8

And Joshua son of Nun, servant of Yahweh, died, a son of a hundred and ten years,

9

and they buried him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-Cheres, in the mountainland of Ephraim, on the north of mount Gaash;

10

and also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers, and another generation rose after them who had not known Yahweh, and even the work which he had done unto Israel.

11

And the sons of Israel did the bad in the eyes of Yahweh, and served the Baals,

12

and left Yahweh, god of their fathers, who brought them forth from the land of Egypt; and went after other gods—of the gods of the peoples that were around them—and prostrated unto them, and provoked Yahweh,

13

and they left Yahweh, and did service unto Baal and unto Ashtars.

14

And the nose of Yahweh burned against Israel, and he gave them into the hand of plunderers, and they plundered them, and he sold them into the hand of their enemies around, and they were not able to stand any more in the face of their enemies;

15

in all that they went forth, the hand of Yahweh was against them for bad, as Yahweh had spoken, and as Yahweh had sworn unto them; and they were very hemmed ‹in›.

16

And Yahweh raised judges, and they saved them from the hand of their plunderers—

17

and also unto their judges they did not hearken, but went whoring after other gods, and prostrated unto them; they turned aside with haste out of the way that their fathers walked to obey the commands of Yahweh—not so did they.

18

And when Yahweh raised unto them judges—and Yahweh was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it sorrowed Yahweh, because of their groaning from the face of those pressing and jostling them.

19

And it came to be, at the death of the judge, they turned back and did destructively above their fathers, to go after other gods, to serve them, and to prostrate unto them; they did not come down from their doings, and from their obstinate way.

20

And the nose of Yahweh burned with Israel, and he said: Because that this nation has crossed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice,

21

I also will not continue to dispossess from before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died,

22

in order to test Israel by them, whether they will guard the way of Yahweh, to go in it, as their fathers guarded it, or not.

23

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