Judges 1-2 (Amplified Bible)

Judges 1

 ¹AFTER THE death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord, Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?

    ²And the Lord said, Judah shall go up; behold, I have delivered the land into his hand.

    ³And Judah [the tribe] said to [the tribe of] Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my allotted territory, so that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with you into your territory. So Simeon went with him.

    ⁴Then Judah went up and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they smote 10,000 of them in Bezek.

    ⁵And they found Adoni-bezek in Bezek and fought against him, and they smote the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

    ⁶Adoni-bezek fled, but they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and his big toes.

    ⁷Adoni-bezek said, Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off had to gather their food under my table. As I have done, so God has repaid me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.

    ⁸And the men of Judah fought against [Jebusite] Jerusalem and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire.

    ⁹Afterward the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the hill country, in the South (the Negeb), and in the lowland.

    ¹⁰And Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron. The name of Hebron before was Kiriath-arba. And they defeated Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai.

    ¹¹From there [Judah] went against the inhabitants of Debir. The name of Debir before was Kiriath-sepher [city of books and scribes].

    ¹²And Caleb said, Whoever attacks Kiriath-sepher and takes it, to him will I give Achsah, my daughter, as wife.

    ¹³And Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it; and he gave him Achsah, his daughter, as wife.

    ¹⁴And when she came to [Othniel], she got his consent to ask her father for a [sloping] field. And she alighted off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, What do you want?

    ¹⁵And she said to him, Give me a present; since you have set me in the land of the South (the Negeb), give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.

    ¹⁶And the descendants of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, went up with the Judahites from the City of Palms (Jericho) into the Wilderness of Judah, which lies in the South (the Negeb) near Arad; and they went and dwelt with the people.

    ¹⁷And [the tribe of] Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they slew the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath and utterly destroyed it. So the city was called Hormah [destruction].

    ¹⁸Also Judah took Gaza, Askelon, and Ekron--each with its territory.

    ¹⁹The Lord was with Judah, and [Judah] drove out the inhabitants of the hill country, but he could not drive out those inhabiting the [difficult] valley basin because they had chariots of iron.

    ²⁰Hebron was given to Caleb as Moses said, and he expelled from there the three sons of Anak.^(A)

    ²¹But the Benjamites did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem; the Jebusites dwell with the Benjamites in Jerusalem to this day.

    ²²The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them.

    ²³And the house of Joseph was sent to spy out Bethel. The name of the city formerly had been Luz.

    ²⁴And the spies saw a man coming out of the city and they said to him, Show us, we pray you, the way into the city and we will show you mercy.

    ²⁵When he showed them the entrance to the city, they smote the city with the sword, but they let the man and all his family go.

    ²⁶And the man went into the land of the Hittites and built a city and called it Luz, which is its name to this day.

    ²⁷Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or of Taanach or Dor or Ibleam or Megiddo and their villages, but the Canaanites remained in that land.

    ²⁸When Israel became strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor but did not utterly drive them out.

    ²⁹Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer, but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.

    ³⁰Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron or of Nahalol, but the Canaanites dwelt among them and were put to forced labor.

    ³¹Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Acco or of Sidon or of Ahlab or of Achzib or of Helbah or of Aphik or of Rehob;

    ³²But the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out.

    ³³Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh or of Beth-anath, but dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; but the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them.

    ³⁴The Amorites forced the Danites back into the hill country, for they would not allow them to come down into the plain;

    ³⁵The Amorites remained fixed in Mount Heres [mountain of the sun], in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim; yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became subject to forced labor.

    ³⁶And the border of the Amorites was from the ascent of Akrabbim, from the rock Sela and onward.

   

Judges 2

 ¹NOW THE ^[a]Angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And He said, I brought you up from Egypt and have brought you to the land which I swore to give to your fathers, and I said, I will never break My covenant with you;^(B)

    ²And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; but you shall break down their altars. But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this?

    ³So now I say, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.

    ⁴When the Angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the Israelites, the people lifted up their voice and wept.

    ⁵They named that place Bochim [weepers], and they sacrificed there to the Lord.

    ⁶And when Joshua had let the people go, the Israelites went every man to his inheritance to possess the land.

    ⁷And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He did for Israel.

    ⁸And Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old.

    ⁹And they buried him within the boundary of his inheritance in Timnath-heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

    ¹⁰And also all that generation were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know (recognize, understand) the Lord, or even the work which He had done for Israel.

    ¹¹And the people of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.

    ¹²And they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, Who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods of the peoples round about them and bowed down to them, and provoked the Lord to anger.

    ¹³And they forsook the Lord and served Baal [the god worshiped by the Canaanites] and the Ashtaroth [female deities such as Ashtoreth and Asherah].

    ¹⁴So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He gave them into the power of plunderers who robbed them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could no longer stand before their foes.

    ¹⁵Whenever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn to them; and they were bitterly distressed.^(C)

    ¹⁶But the Lord raised up judges, who delivered them out of the hands of those who robbed them.

    ¹⁷And yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed down to them. They turned quickly out of the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not so.

    ¹⁸When the Lord raised them up judges, then He was with the judge and delivered them out of the hands of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to relent because of their groanings by reason of those who oppressed and vexed them.

    ¹⁹But when the judge was dead, they turned back and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, following and serving other gods, and bowing down to them. They did not cease from their practices or their stubborn way.

    ²⁰So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel; and He said, Because this people have transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers and have not listened to My voice,

    ²¹I from now on will also not drive out from before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died,

    ²²That through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk in it, as their fathers kept it, or not.

    ²³So the Lord left those nations, without driving them out at once, nor had He delivered them into Joshua's power.