Joshua 23–24; Judges 1

Joshua 23–24 WEB

^23:1After many days, when the LORD had given rest to Israel from their enemies all around, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, ²Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders and for their heads, and for their judges and for their officers, and said to them, “I am old and well advanced in years. ³You have seen all that the LORD your God has done to all these nations because of you; for it is the LORD your God who has fought for you. ⁴Behold, I have allotted to you these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, even to the great sea toward the going down of the sun. ⁵The LORD your God will thrust them out from before you, and drive them from out of your sight. You shall possess their land, as the LORD your God spoke to you. ⁶“Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that you not turn away from it to the right hand or to the left; ⁷that you not come among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow down yourselves to them; ⁸but hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have done to this day. ⁹“For the LORD has driven great and strong nations out from before you. But as for you, no man has stood before you to this day. ¹⁰One man of you shall chase a thousand; for it is the LORD your God who fights for you, as he spoke to you. ¹¹Take good heed therefore to yourselves, that you love the LORD your God. ¹²“But if you do at all go back, and hold fast to the remnant of these nations, even these who remain among you, and make marriages with them, and go in to them, and they to you; ¹³know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you. ¹⁴“Behold, today I am going the way of all the earth. You know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spoke concerning you. All have happened to you. Not one thing has failed of it. ¹⁵It shall happen that as all the good things have come on you of which the LORD your God spoke to you, so the LORD will bring on you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you, ¹⁶when you disobey the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them. Then the LORD’s anger will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you.”

^24:1Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God. ²Joshua said to all the people, “The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Your fathers lived of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor. They served other gods. ³I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his offspring, and gave him Isaac. ⁴I gave to Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave to Esau Mount Seir, to possess it. Jacob and his children went down into Egypt. ⁵“‘I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out. ⁶I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and you came to the sea. The Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and with horsemen to the Red Sea. ⁷When they cried out to the LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea on them, and covered them; and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. You lived in the wilderness many days. ⁸“‘I brought you into the land of the Amorites, that lived beyond the Jordan. They fought with you, and I gave them into your hand. You possessed their land, and I destroyed them from before you. ⁹Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel. He sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you, ¹⁰but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you still. So I delivered you out of his hand. ¹¹“‘You went over the Jordan, and came to Jericho. The men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your hand. ¹²I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; not with your sword, nor with your bow. ¹³I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you didn’t build, and you live in them. You eat of vineyards and olive groves which you didn’t plant.’ ¹⁴“Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth. Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, in Egypt; and serve the LORD. ¹⁵If it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” ¹⁶The people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods; ¹⁷for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way in which we went, and among all the peoples through the middle of whom we passed. ¹⁸The LORD drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the LORD; for he is our God.” ¹⁹Joshua said to the people, “You can’t serve the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your disobedience nor your sins. ²⁰If you forsake the LORD, and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you evil, and consume you, after he has done you good.” ²¹The people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the LORD.” ²²Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD yourselves, to serve him.” They said, “We are witnesses.” ²³“Now therefore put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel.” ²⁴The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God, and we will listen to his voice.” ²⁵So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. ²⁶Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. ²⁷Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the LORD’s words which he spoke to us. It shall be therefore a witness against you, lest you deny your God.” ²⁸So Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance. ²⁹After these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being one hundred ten years old. ³⁰They buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathserah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash. ³¹Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, and had known all the work of the LORD, that he had worked for Israel. ³²They buried the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, in Shechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of silver. They became the inheritance of the children of Joseph. ³³Eleazar the son of Aaron died. They buried him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim.

Judges 1 WEB

¹After the death of Joshua, the children of Israel asked of the LORD, saying, “Who should go up for us first against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” ²The LORD said, “Judah shall go up. Behold, I have delivered the land into his hand.” ³Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into my lot, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with you into your lot.” So Simeon went with him. ⁴Judah went up, and the LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand. They struck ten thousand men in Bezek. ⁵They found Adoni-Bezek in Bezek, and they fought against him. They struck the Canaanites and the Perizzites. ⁶But Adoni-Bezek fled. They pursued him, caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his big toes. ⁷Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their big toes cut off, scavenged under my table. As I have done, so God has done to me.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there. ⁸The children of Judah fought against Jerusalem, took it, struck it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire. ⁹After that, the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who lived in the hill country, and in the South, and in the lowland. ¹⁰Judah went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron. (The name of Hebron before that was Kiriath Arba.) They struck Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai. ¹¹From there he went against the inhabitants of Debir. (The name of Debir before that was Kiriath Sepher.) ¹²Caleb said, “I will give Achsah my daughter as wife to the man who strikes Kiriath Sepher, and takes it.” ¹³Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it, so he gave him Achsah his daughter as his wife. ¹⁴When she came, she got him to ask her father for a field. She got off her donkey; and Caleb said to her, “What would you like?” ¹⁵She said to him, “Give me a blessing; because you have set me in the land of the South, give me also springs of water.” Then Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. ¹⁶The children of the Kenite, Moses’ brother-in-law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which is in the south of Arad; and they went and lived with the people. ¹⁷Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they struck the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. The name of the city was called Hormah. ¹⁸Also Judah took Gaza with its border, and Ashkelon with its border, and Ekron with its border. ¹⁹The LORD was with Judah, and drove out the inhabitants of the hill country; for he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. ²⁰They gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said, and he drove the three sons of Anak out of there. ²¹The children of Benjamin didn’t drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem, but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. ²²The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the LORD was with them. ²³The house of Joseph sent to spy out Bethel. (The name of the city before that was Luz.) ²⁴The watchers saw a man come out of the city, and they said to him, “Please show us the entrance into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.” ²⁵He showed them the entrance into the city, and they struck the city with the edge of the sword; but they let the man and all his family go. ²⁶The man went into the land of the Hittites, built a city, and called its name Luz, which is its name to this day. ²⁷Manasseh didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shean and its towns, nor Taanach and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and its towns; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. ²⁸When Israel had grown strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, and didn’t utterly drive them out. ²⁹Ephraim didn’t drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, but the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them. ³⁰Zebulun didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites lived among them, and became subject to forced labor. ³¹Asher didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Acco, nor the inhabitants of Sidon, nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of Aphik, nor of Rehob; ³²but the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they didn’t drive them out. ³³Naphtali didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh, nor the inhabitants of Beth Anath; but he lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and of Beth Anath became subject to forced labor. ³⁴The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the hill country, for they would not allow them to come down to the valley; ³⁵but the Amorites would dwell in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim. Yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became subject to forced labor. ³⁶The border of the Amorites was from the ascent of Akrabbim, from the rock, and upward.