Judges 2

₁The Angel_of_the_Lord went from the town of Gilgal to the town of Bokim and He said to the Israelites: ‘I brought you out of Egypt into the land that I promised your forefathers and I said I would never break my covenant with you. ₂I also said you must not make an agreement with the people of this land and that you must break down all their altars.

But you did not listen to Me. You have not done what I told you to do. ₃Now I am telling you: I will stop helping you. I will not chase away these people who live in your land. They will be your enemies and their false gods will tempt you and they will catch you like a bird in a trap.’

₄When the Angel_of_the_Lord said this to all the Israelites, they cried out loudly. ₅That is why they named that town Bokim. The name Bokim means ‘People who cry’. Then they gave offerings to God.

₆Joshua told the Israelites to go home and each tribe went to their land. ₇The Israelites served the Lord while Joshua lived and while the leaders_of_Israel were alive who had seen the great things that the Lord had done for them. ₈Joshua, son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110 years old. ₉His people buried him in his land at Timnath-Heres in the mountains of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. ₁₀The people who lived in the time of Joshua also died and younger men became leaders. The people who lived then did not know about the Lord or what He had done for the Israelites. ₁₁Then the Israelites started doing things that the Lord said are wrong. They started to worship the Baals. ₁₂They stopped serving the Lord, the God of their fathers, the Lord who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They started to serve other gods, the gods of the people around them. They bowed before those gods and they made the Lord very angry. ₁₃Yes, the Israelites stopped serving the Lord and they started to serve the Baals and the Ashtoreth idols. ₁₄The Lord was very angry and He let other people come and take everything that the Israelites had. He made the Israelites weaker than their enemies, and they could not stop their enemies. ₁₅Everywhere they went, the Lord made them suffer. He had told his people long before that He would do this, and now the Israelites suffered a lot.

₁₆Then the Lord chose leaders for the Israelites. These leaders helped the Israelites and saved them from their enemies who came to take their food and animals. ₁₇But the Israelites did not listen to these leaders. They worshipped other gods and bowed before them. Yes, the Israelites were unfaithful to God, they were not like their forefathers. Their forefathers listened to the Lord, but now they forgot the Lord.

₁₈When the Lord gave the Israelites a leader, the Lord was with that leader and the Lord saved them from their enemies while that leader was alive. The Lord saved them because He felt sorry for them when enemies oppressed them and made them suffer. ₁₉But when that leader died, the Israelites did bad things again, things that were worse than what their forefathers had done. They worshipped other gods and bowed before them. They did not stop doing bad things. ₂₀Then the Lord got angry with the Israelites and He said: ‘These people don't do what I told their forefathers to do. They do not listen to Me. ₂₁Now I will not chase away the people from the other nations, not one of the nations who stayed in the land when Joshua died. ₂₂I want to test the Israelites. I want to see if they will do what I want them to do like their forefathers did.’

₂₃The Lord let some of the nations stay there. He did not chase them out of the land immediately. He did not tell Joshua to go to war_against those people.