1 The angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, "I brought you up from Egypt and led you into the land I swore to your fathers, and I said, 'Never will I break my covenant with you,
2 and you for your part are not to make a covenant with the people who live in this land; their altars you are to pull down.' Yet you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this?
3 So I also said, 'I will not drive them out ahead of you; they will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a trap for you.'"
4 As the angel of the LORD was speaking these words to all the children of Israel, the people raised their voices and wept.
5 They named that place Bochim, and there they offered sacrifices to the LORD.
6 Joshua had dismissed the people, and the children of Israel had gone, each to his inheritance, to possess the land.
7 The people served the LORD throughout Joshua's lifetime and throughout the lifetime of the elders who lived on after Joshua, who had seen all the great deeds the LORD had done for Israel.
8 Then Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, a hundred and ten years old.
9 They buried him in the territory he had inherited, at Timnath-heres in the hill country of Ephraim, to the north of Mount Gaash.
10 That whole generation was gathered to their fathers as well, and after them rose up another generation that knew neither the LORD nor the deeds he had done for Israel.
11 Then the children of Israel did evil in the LORD's sight and served the Baals.
12 They abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt, and followed other gods, gods of the peoples around them, and bowed down to them, and so they provoked the LORD.
13 They abandoned the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.
14 The LORD's anger blazed against Israel, and he handed them over to raiders who plundered them, and sold them into the power of their enemies on every side; they could no longer hold their ground against their enemies.
15 Whenever they marched out, the LORD's hand was against them to bring them harm, just as the LORD had said and as the LORD had sworn to them, and they were in sore distress.
16 And the LORD raised up judges who rescued them from the hand of their plunderers.
17 Even to their judges, though, they would not listen, but went whoring after other gods and bowed down to them. They were quick to turn from the way in which their fathers had walked, obeying the LORD's commandments; they did not do likewise.
18 When the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD would be with the judge and would rescue them from their enemies' hand for as long as the judge lived, because the LORD was moved by their groaning over those who oppressed and afflicted them.
19 But once the judge was dead, they would turn back and behave worse than their fathers, following other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They let go of none of their deeds or their stubborn ways.
20 So the LORD's anger blazed against Israel, and he said, "Since this nation has broken my covenant that I laid upon their fathers and has not obeyed my voice,
21 I in turn will no longer dispossess before them a single one of the nations that Joshua left behind when he died,
22 so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep to the way of the LORD, walking in it as their fathers kept to it, or not."
23 So the LORD let those nations remain; he did not quickly dispossess them, and he had not handed them over to Joshua.