Judges 1-2

Complete Jewish Bible

1 After the death of Y’hoshua, the people of Isra’el asked Adonai, “Who will go up for us first to fight against the Kena‘ani?” ² Adonai said: “Y’hudah will go up; here, I have handed the land over to him.” ³ Y’hudah said to his brother Shim‘on, “Come up with me into my assigned territory, so that we can fight against the Kena‘ani; and I likewise will go with you into your territory.” So Shim‘on went with him. ⁴ Y’hudah went up; and Adonai gave the Kena‘ani and the P’rizi into their hands; of those in Bezek they killed ten thousand men. ⁵ They found Adoni-Bezek in Bezek; and they fought against him. They killed the Kena‘ani and the P’rizi, ⁶ but Adoni-Bezek fled. They pursued him, caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes. ⁷ Adoni-Bezek said: “Seventy kings, with their thumbs and their big toes cut off, gathered food under my table; God has paid me back in accordance with what I did.” They brought him to Yerushalayim, and he died there.

⁸ Then the people of Y’hudah fought against Yerushalayim, captured it, overpowered it with the sword, and set the city on fire. ⁹ Afterwards, the people of Y’hudah went down to fight against the Kena‘ani who lived in the hill-country, in the Negev, and in the Sh’felah. ¹⁰ Y’hudah also attacked the Kena‘ani living in Hevron (formerly called Kiryat-Arba), and they overpowered Sheshai, Achiman and Talmai.

¹¹ From there they attacked the inhabitants of D’vir (D’vir was formerly called Kiryat-Sefer). ¹² Kalev said: “To whoever overpowers Kiryat-Sefer and captures it I will give my daughter ‘Akhsah as his wife.” ¹³ ‘Otni’el the son of K’naz, Kalev’s younger brother, captured it; so he gave him ‘Akhsah his daughter as his wife. ¹⁴ After becoming his wife, she persuaded him to ask her father to give them a field; when she got off her donkey, Kalev asked her, “What do you want?” ¹⁵ She said to him: “Give me a blessing: since you gave me land in the Negev, also give me sources of water.” So Kalev gave her the Upper Springs and the Lower Springs.

¹⁶ Next, the descendants of the Keini, Moshe’s father-in-law, went up out of the City of Date-Palms with the people of Y’hudah into the Y’hudah Desert south of ‘Arad; and they came and settled with the people.

¹⁷ Y’hudah went with Shim‘on his brother; they overpowered the Kena‘ani who inhabited Tz’fat, and completely destroyed it. The name of the city was called Hormah. ¹⁸ Y’hudah also took ‘Azah with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory and ‘Ekron with its territory. ¹⁹ Adonai was with Y’hudah, and they took possession of the hill-country, because they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, since they had iron chariots.

²⁰ They gave Hevron to Kalev, as Moshe had said to do; and he drove out from there the three sons of ‘Anak.

²¹ The people of Binyamin did not drive out the Y’vusi who inhabited Yerushalayim; rather, the Y’vusi continued living with the people of Binyamin in Yerushalayim, as they do to this day.

²² The house of Yosef likewise attacked Beit-El; and Adonai was with them. ²³ The house of Yosef sent spies to Beit-El (the city was formerly called Luz). ²⁴ The spies saw a man coming out of the city and said to him: “Please show us the way to enter the city, and we will treat you kindly.” ²⁵ So he showed them the way into the city, and they overpowered the city with the sword, but they let the man and all his family go free. ²⁶ He went into the land of the Hittim, built a city and called it Luz, which is its name to this day.

²⁷ M’nasheh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beit-Sh’an and its villages, Ta‘anakh and its villages, Dor and its villages, Yivle‘am and its villages or Megiddo and its villages; so that the Kena‘ani managed to keep on living in that land. ²⁸ In time, when Isra’el had grown strong, they did put the Kena‘ani to forced labor but failed to drive them out completely.

²⁹ Efrayim did not drive out the Kena‘ani living in Gezer; so the Kena‘ani continued living in Gezer along with them.

³⁰ Z’vulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron or Nahalol; so the Kena‘ani continued to live among them but became subject to forced labor.

³¹ Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of ‘Akko, Tzidon, Achlav, Akhziv, Helbah, Afik or Rechov; ³² so the Asheri lived among the Kena‘ani who were living in the land, because they didn’t drive them out.

³³ Naftali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beit-Shemesh or Beit-‘Anat but lived among the Kena‘ani living in the land; however, the inhabitants of Beit-Shemesh and Beit-‘Anat became forced labor for them.

³⁴ The Emori forced the people of Dan into the hills; for they would not let them come down to the valley. ³⁵ The Emori had resolved to live in the Heres Hills, in Ayalon and in Sha‘alvim; but when the power of the house of Yosef grew greater, they became subject to forced labor. ³⁶ So the territory of the Emori was from the Scorpion Ascent and the Rock upward.

2 Now the angel of Adonai came up from Gilgal to Bokhim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt, led you to the land I swore to your fathers and said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you; ² you, for your part, are not to make any covenant with the inhabitants of this land but must tear down their altars.’ However, you have paid no attention to what I said. What is this you have done? ³ This is why I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they will be on your flanks, and their gods will become a snare for you.’” ⁴ When the angel of Adonai spoke these words to all the people of Isra’el, they began crying and wailing at the top of their voices. ⁵ So they called the name of that place Bokhim [crying] and sacrificed there to Adonai.

⁶ When Y’hoshua had sent the people away, the people of Isra’el had gone each one to his assigned property in order to take possession of the land. ⁷ The people served Adonai throughout Y’hoshua’s life and throughout the lives of all the older men who outlived Y’hoshua and who had seen all the great work of Adonai which he had done for Isra’el. ⁸ When Y’hoshua the son of Nun, the servant of Adonai, died, he was 110 years old; ⁹ and they buried him near the boundary of his property in Timnat-Heres, in the hills of Efrayim, north of Mount Ga‘ash.

¹⁰ When that entire generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation arose that knew neither Adonai nor the work he had done for Isra’el. ¹¹ Then the people of Isra’el did what was evil from Adonai’s perspective and served the ba‘alim. ¹² They abandoned Adonai, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, selected from the gods of the peoples around them, and worshipped them; this made Adonai angry. ¹³ They abandoned Adonai and served Ba‘al and the ‘ashtarot. ¹⁴ The anger of Adonai blazed against Isra’el; and he handed them over to pillagers, who plundered them, and to their enemies around them; so that they could no longer resist their enemies. ¹⁵ Whenever they launched an attack, the power of Adonai was against them, so that things turned out badly — just as Adonai had said would happen and had sworn to them. They were in dire distress.

¹⁶ But then Adonai raised up judges, who rescued them from the power of those who were plundering them. ¹⁷ Yet they did not pay attention to their judges, but made whores of themselves to other gods and worshipped them; they quickly turned away from the path on which their ancestors had walked, the way of obeying Adonai’s mitzvot — they failed to do this. ¹⁸ When Adonai raised up judges for them, Adonai was with the judge and delivered them from the hands of their enemies throughout the lifetime of the judge; for Adonai was moved to pity by their groaning under those oppressing and crushing them. ¹⁹ But after the judge died, they would relapse into worse behavior than that of their ancestors, following other gods to serve and worship them; they abandoned none of their practices or stubborn ways. ²⁰ So the anger of Adonai blazed against Isra’el; he said, “Because this nation violates my covenant, which I ordered their fathers to obey; and they don’t pay attention to what I say; ²¹ in the future, I will not expel ahead of them any of the nations that Y’hoshua left when he died. ²² This is how I will test Isra’el, to see whether or not they will keep the way of Adonai, living according to it, as their ancestors did.” ²³ So Adonai allowed those nations to remain where they were, without quickly driving them out; he did not hand them over to Y’hoshua.