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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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It was there that they found Adoni-Bezek and fought against him, putting to rout the Canaanites and Perizzites.
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Adoni-Bezek fled, but they chased him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.
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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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And Caleb said, “I will give my daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.”
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Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Aksah to him in marriage.
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One day when she came to Othniel, she urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What can I do for you?”
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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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As Moses had promised, Hebron was given to Caleb, who drove from it the three sons of Anak.
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The Benjamites, however, did not drive out the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.
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the spies saw a man coming out of the city and they said to him, “Show us how to get into the city and we will see that you are treated well.”
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So he showed them, and they put the city to the sword but spared the man and his whole family.
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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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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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And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
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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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because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.
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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.
