Pass The Test

In The Word

Read: Judges 2:6-3:6

 

Joshua Dies

⁶ When Joshua had dismissed the people, the sons of Israel went, each one to his inheritance, to take possession of the land. ⁷ The 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. ⁸ Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110. ⁹ And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. ¹⁰ All 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.

Israel Serves the Baals

¹¹ Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, ¹² and 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. ¹³ They abandoned the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth. ¹⁴ Then the anger of the Lordburned 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. ¹⁵ Wherever 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.

¹⁶ Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them from the hands of those who plundered them. ¹⁷ Yet 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. ¹⁸ And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lordwas 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. ¹⁹ But 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. ²⁰ So 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, ²¹ I in turn will no longer drive out from them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, ²² in 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.” ²³ So the Lordallowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly; and He did not hand them over to Joshua.

Idolatry Leads to Servitude

3 Now 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; ² only in order that the generations of the sons of Israel might be taught war, those who had not experienced it previously). ³ These 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. ⁴ They 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. ⁵ The sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; ⁶ and they took their daughters for themselves as wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.