4. After the angel gave the Israelites this message from the Lord, the people cried loudly.
5. So they named the place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the Lord.
6. Then Joshua told the people to go home, so each tribe went to take their area of land.
7. The Israelites served the Lord as long as Joshua was alive, and they continued serving the Lord during the lifetimes of the elders who lived after Joshua had died. These old men had seen all the great things the Lord had done for the Israelites.
8. Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years.
9. The Israelites buried Joshua on the land that he had been given. That was at Timnath Heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
10. After that whole generation died, the next generation grew up. This new generation did not know about the Lord or what he had done for the Israelites.
11. So the Israelites did something very evil before the Lord. They began serving the false god Baal.
12. It was the Lord, the God their ancestors worshiped, who had brought the Israelites out of Egypt. But they stopped following him and began to worship the false gods of the people living around them. This made the Lord angry.
13. The Israelites stopped following the Lord and began worshiping Baal and Ashtoreth.
14. The Lord was angry with the Israelites, so he let enemies attack them and take their possessions. He let their enemies who lived around them defeat them. The Israelites could not protect themselves from their enemies.
15. When the Israelites went out to fight, they always lost. They lost because the Lord was not on their side. He had already warned them that they would lose if they served the gods of the people living around them. The Israelites suffered very much.
16. Then the Lord chose leaders called judges. These leaders saved the Israelites from the enemies who took their possessions.
17. But the Israelites did not listen to their judges. The Israelites were not faithful to God—they followed other gods. In the past, the ancestors of the Israelites obeyed the Lord’S commands. But now the Israelites changed and stopped obeying the Lord.
18. Many times the enemies of Israel did bad things to the people, so the Israelites would cry for help. And each time the Lord felt sorry for the people and sent a judge to save them from their enemies. The Lord was always with those judges. Each time the Israelites were saved from their enemies.