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Israel Fights the Remaining Canaanites
After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord, “Who of us is to go up first to fight against the Canaanites?”
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The men of Judah then said to the Simeonites their fellow Israelites, “Come up with us into the territory allotted to us, to fight against the Canaanites. We in turn will go with you into yours.” So the Simeonites went with them.
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Then Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table. Now God has paid me back for what I did to them.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.
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Then the men of Judah went with the Simeonites their fellow Israelites and attacked the Canaanites living in Zephath, and they totally destroyed the city. Therefore it was called Hormah.
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He then went to the land of the Hittites, where he built a city and called it Luz, which is its name to this day.
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When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely.
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And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.’”
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When the angel of the Lord had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud,
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Disobedience and Defeat
After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to their own inheritance.
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The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.
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After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.
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Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.
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They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger
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In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.
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Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.
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Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands.
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But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
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Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant I ordained for their ancestors and has not listened to me,
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I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the Lord and walk in it as their ancestors did.”
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These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan
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(he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience):
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They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had given their ancestors through Moses.
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The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
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They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
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Othniel
The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
