Introductory Summary of the Period

⁶When Joshua dismissed the people, the Israelites went to their allotted territories and took possession of the land. ⁷The people served the Lord during the lifetime of Joshua and the lifetime of the older people who lived on after Joshua and who had witnessed all the marvelous deeds that the Lord had wrought for Israel. ⁸Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten years, ⁹and was buried on his own property, at Timnath-heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. ¹⁰And all that generation were likewise gathered to their fathers.

Another generation arose after them, which had not experienced [the deliverance of] the Lord or the deeds that He had wrought for Israel. ¹¹And the Israelites did what was offensive to the Lord. They worshiped the Baalim ¹²and forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples around them, and bowed down to them; they provoked the Lord. ¹³They forsook the Lord and worshiped Baal and the Ashtaroth. ¹⁴Then the Lord was incensed at Israel, and He handed them over to foes who plundered them. He surrendered them to their enemies on all sides, and they could no longer hold their own against their enemies. ¹⁵In all their campaigns, the hand of the Lord was against them to their undoing, as the Lord had declared and as the Lord had sworn to them; and they were in great distress. ¹⁶Then the Lord raised up chieftains who delivered them from those who plundered them. ¹⁷But they did not heed their chieftains either; they went astray after other gods and bowed down to them. They were quick to turn aside from the way their fathers had followed in obedience to the commandments of the Lord; they did not do right. ¹⁸When the Lord raised up chieftains for them, the Lord would be with the chieftain and would save them from their enemies during the chieftain’s lifetime; for the Lord would be moved to pity by their moanings because of those who oppressed and crushed them. ¹⁹But when the chieftain died, they would again act basely, even more than the preceding generation—following other gods, worshiping them, and bowing down to them; they omitted none of their practices and stubborn ways.

²⁰Then the Lord became incensed against Israel, and He said, “Since that nation has transgressed the covenant that I enjoined upon their fathers and has not obeyed Me, ²¹I for My part will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died.” ²²For it was in order to test Israel by them—[to see] whether or not they would faithfully walk in the ways of the Lord, as their fathers had done—²³that the Lord had left those nations, instead of driving them out at once, and had not delivered them into the hands of Joshua.