¹⁹ You will drive out all the enemies living in the land, just as the Lord said you would.

⁵² you must drive out all the people living there. You must destroy all their carved and molten images and demolish all their pagan shrines. ⁵³ Take possession of the land and settle in it, because I have given it to you to occupy.

²⁸ I will send terror^[a] ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites. ²⁹ But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply and threaten you. ³⁰ I will drive them out a little at a time until your population has increased enough to take possession of the land.

The Nations Left in Canaan

3 These are the nations that the Lord left in the land to test those Israelites who had not experienced the wars of Canaan. ² He did this to teach warfare to generations of Israelites who had no experience in battle. ³ These are the nations: the Philistines (those living under the five Philistine rulers), all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the mountains of Lebanon from Mount Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath. ⁴ These people were left to test the Israelites—to see whether they would obey the commands the Lord had given to their ancestors through Moses.

The Lord’s Messenger Comes to Bokim

2 The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said to the Israelites, “I brought you out of Egypt into this land that I swore to give your ancestors, and I said I would never break my covenant with you. ² For your part, you were not to make any covenants with the people living in this land; instead, you were to destroy their altars. But you disobeyed my command. Why did you do this? ³ So now I declare that I will no longer drive out the people living in your land. They will be thorns in your sides,^[a] and their gods will be a constant temptation to you.”