²⁹ I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild animals multiply against you.^(A)

²² The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to make a quick end of them, otherwise the wild animals would become too numerous for you.^(A)

Nations Remaining in the Land

3 Now these are the nations that the Lord left to test all those in Israel who had no experience of war in Canaan^{(A) 2} (it was only for successive generations of Israelites, to teach war to those who had no experience of it): ³ the five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath.^{(B) 4} They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord that he commanded their ancestors by Moses.^(C)

¹² Yet the Manassites could not take possession of those towns, but the Canaanites continued to live in that land.^{(A) 13} But when the Israelites grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor but did not utterly drive them out.^(B)

⁶³ But the people of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so the Jebusites live with the people of Judah in Jerusalem to this day.^(A)

¹⁰ They did not, however, drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived within Ephraim to this day but have been made to do forced labor.^(A)