Chapter 2

And a messenger of Yehovah goeth up from Gilgal unto Bochim,

and saith, `I cause you to come up out of Egypt, and bring you in unto the land which I have sworn to your fathers, and say, I do not break My covenant with you to the age; and ye -- ye make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land -- their altars ye break down; and ye have not hearkened to My voice -- what is this ye have done?

And I also have said, I do not cast them out from your presence, and they have been to you for adversaries, and their gods are to you for a snare.`

And it cometh to pass, when the messenger of Yehovah speaketh these words unto all the sons of Israel, that the people lift up their voice and weep,

and they call the name of that place Bochim, and sacrifice there to Yehovah.

And Joshua sendeth the people away, and the sons of Israel go, each to his inheritance, to possess the land;

and the people serve Yehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who prolonged days after Joshua, who saw all the great work of Yehovah which He did to Israel.

And Joshua son of Nun, servant of Yehovah, dieth, a son of a hundred and ten years,

and they bury him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-Heres, in the hill-country of Ephraim, on the north of mount Gaash;

and also all that generation have been gathered unto their fathers, and another generation riseth after them who have not known Yehovah, and even the work which He hath done to Israel.

And the sons of Israel do the evil thing in the eyes of Yehovah, and serve the Baalim,

and forsake Yehovah, God of their fathers, who bringeth them out from the land of Egypt, and go after other gods (of the gods of the peoples who are round about them), and bow themselves to them, and provoke Yehovah,

yea, they forsake Yehovah, and do service to Baal and to Ashtaroth.

And the anger of Yehovah burneth against Israel, and He giveth them into the hand of spoilers, and they spoil them, and He selleth them into the hand of their enemies round about, and they have not been able any more to stand before their enemies;

in every place where they have gone out, the hand of Yehovah hath been against them for evil, as Yehovah hath spoken, and as Yehovah hath sworn to them, and they are distressed -- greatly.

And Yehovah raiseth up judges, and they save them from the hand of their spoilers;

and also unto their judges they have not hearkened, but have gone a-whoring after other gods, and bow themselves to them; they have turned aside with haste out of the way in which their fathers walked to obey the commands of Yehovah -- they have not done so.

And when Yehovah raised up to them judges -- then was Yehovah with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it repenteth Yehovah, because of their groaning from the presence of their oppressors, and of those thrusting them away.

And it hath come to pass, at the death of the judge -- they turn back and have done corruptly above their fathers, to go after other gods, to serve them, and to bow themselves to them; they have not fallen from their doings, and from their stiff way.

And the anger of Yehovah doth burn against Israel, and He saith, `Because that this nation have transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened to My voice --

I also continue not to dispossess any from before them of the nations which Joshua hath left when he dieth,

in order to try Israel by them, whether they are keeping the way of Yehovah, to go in it, as their fathers kept it or not.`

And Yehovah leaveth these nations, so as not to dispossess them hastily, and did not give them into the hand of Joshua.