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¹Now it came about after the death of Joshua that the sons of Israel inquired of the LORD, saying, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?”

²The LORD said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have handed the land over to him.”

³Then Judah said to his brother Simeon, “Go up with me into the territory allotted me, and let’s fight the Canaanites; and I in turn will go with you into the territory allotted you.” So Simeon went with him.

⁴Judah went up, and the LORD handed over to them the Canaanites and the Perizzites, and they defeated ten thousand men at Bezek.

⁵They found Adoni-bezek in Bezek and fought against him, and they defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

⁶But Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.

⁷And Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to gather up scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has repaid me.” So they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

⁸Then the sons of Judah fought against Jerusalem and captured it, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire.

⁹Afterward, the sons of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites living in the hill country, and in the Negev, and in the lowland.

¹⁰So Judah went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron (the name of Hebron was previously Kiriath-arba); and they struck Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai.

¹¹Then from there he went against the inhabitants of Debir (the name of Debir was previously Kiriath-sepher).

¹²And Caleb said, “Whoever attacks Kiriath-sepher and captures it, I will give him my daughter Achsah as a wife.”

¹³Now Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, captured it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah as a wife.

¹⁴Then it happened that when she came to him, she incited him to ask her father for a field. Then later, she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?”

¹⁵She said to him, “Give me a blessing: since you have given me the land of the Negev, give me springs of water also.” So Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.

¹⁶Now the descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up from the city of palms with the sons of Judah, to the wilderness of Judah which is in the south of Arad; and they went and lived with the people.

¹⁷Then Judah went with his brother Simeon, and they struck the Canaanites living in Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Hormah.

¹⁸And Judah took Gaza with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory.

¹⁹Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had iron chariots.

²⁰Then they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had promised; and he drove out from there the three sons of Anak.

²¹But the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have lived with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

²²Likewise the house of Joseph went up against Bethel, and the LORD was with them.

²³The house of Joseph had men spy out Bethel (the name of the city previously was Luz).

²⁴And the spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him, “Please show us the entrance to the city, and we will treat you kindly.”

²⁵So he showed them the entrance to the city, and they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all his family go free.

²⁶Then the man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city, and named it Luz, which is its name to this day.

²⁷But Manasseh did not take possession of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; so the Canaanites persisted in living in this land.

²⁸And it came about, when Israel became strong, that they put the Canaanites to forced labor; but they did not drive them out completely.

²⁹And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who were living in Gezer; so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.

³⁰Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, or the inhabitants of Nahalol; so the Canaanites lived among them and became subject to forced labor.

³¹Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon, or of Ahlab, or of Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, or of Rehob.

³²So the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; for they did not drive them out.

³³Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, or the inhabitants of Beth-anath, but lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; and the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath became forced labor for them.

³⁴Then the Amorites forced the sons of Dan into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the valley;

³⁵yet the Amorites persisted in living on Mount Heres, in Aijalon and Shaalbim; but when the power of the house of Joseph grew strong, they became forced labor.

³⁶The border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela and upward.

¹Now the angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you,

²and as for you, you shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed Me; what is this thing that you have done?

³Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out from you; but they will become like thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.’ ”

⁴Now when the angel of the LORD spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people raised their voices and wept.

⁵So they named that place Bochim; and there they sacrificed to the LORD.

⁶When Joshua had dismissed the people, the sons of Israel went, each one to his inheritance, to take possession of the land.

⁷The people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the LORD which He had done for Israel.

⁸Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110.

⁹And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

¹⁰All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and another generation rose up after them who did not know the LORD, nor even the work which He had done for Israel.

¹¹Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals,

¹²and they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed other gods from the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them; so they provoked the LORD to anger.

¹³They abandoned the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.

¹⁴Then the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He handed them over to plunderers, and they plundered them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand against their enemies.

¹⁵Wherever they went, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had spoken and just as the LORD had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed.

¹⁶Then the LORD raised up judges who saved them from the hands of those who plundered them.

¹⁷Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they committed infidelity with other gods and bowed down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the LORD; they did not do the same as their fathers.

¹⁸And when the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge and saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who tormented and oppressed them.

¹⁹But it came about, when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their obstinate ways.

²⁰So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has violated My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to My voice,

²¹I in turn will no longer drive out from them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died,

²²in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk in it as their fathers did, or not.”

²³So the LORD allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly; and He did not hand them over to Joshua.

¹Now these are the nations that the LORD left, to test Israel by them (that is, all the Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars of Canaan;

²only in order that the generations of the sons of Israel might be taught war, those who had not experienced it previously).

³These nations are: the five governors 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.

⁴They were left to test Israel by them, to find out if they would obey the commandments of the LORD, which He had commanded their fathers through Moses.

⁵The sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites;

⁶and they took their daughters for themselves as wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.

⁷So the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.

⁸Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, so that He sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia; and the sons of Israel served Cushan-rishathaim for eight years.

⁹But the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD, and the LORD raised up a deliverer for the sons of Israel to set them free, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.

¹⁰And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged Israel. When he went to war, the LORD handed over to him Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia, so that he prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim.

¹¹Then the land was at rest for forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.

¹²Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD. So the LORD strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the LORD.

¹³And he gathered to himself the sons of Ammon and Amalek; and he went and defeated Israel, and they took possession of the city of the palm trees.

¹⁴And the sons of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab for eighteen years.

¹⁵But when the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer for them, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. And the sons of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab.

¹⁶Now Ehud made himself a sword which had two edges, a cubit in length, and he strapped it on his right thigh under his cloak.

¹⁷Then he presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man.

¹⁸And it came about, when he had finished presenting the tribute, that Ehud sent away the people who had carried the tribute.

¹⁹But he himself turned back from the idols which were at Gilgal, and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.” And the king said, “Silence!” And all who were attending him left him.

²⁰Then Ehud came to him while he was sitting in his cool roof chamber alone. And Ehud said, “I have a message from God for you.” And he got up from his seat.

²¹Then Ehud reached out with his left hand and took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.

²²The hilt of the sword also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade because he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the refuse came out.

²³Then Ehud went out into the vestibule, and shut the doors of the roof chamber behind him, and locked them.

²⁴When he had left, the king’s servants came and looked, and behold, the doors of the roof chamber were locked; and they said, “Undoubtedly he is relieving himself in the cool room.”

²⁵So they waited until it would have been shameful to wait longer; but behold, he did not open the doors of the roof chamber. So they took the key and opened them, and behold, their master had fallen to the floor dead.

²⁶Now Ehud escaped while they were hesitating, and he passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah.

²⁷And when he arrived, he blew the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was leading them.

²⁸Then he said to them, “Pursue them, for the LORD has handed your enemies the Moabites over to you.” So they went down after him and took control of the crossing places of the Jordan opposite Moab, and did not allow anyone to cross.

²⁹They struck and killed about ten thousand Moabites at that time, all robust and valiant men; and no one escaped.

³⁰So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land was at rest for eighty years.

³¹Now after him came Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck and killed six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad; and he also saved Israel.