1. A messenger of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, I brought you up from Egypt and led you into the land which I promised on oath to your ancestors. I said, I will never break my covenant with you,
2. but you must not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you must pull down their altars. But you did not listen to me. Look what you have done!
3. For I also said, I will not clear them out of your way; they will become traps for you, and their gods a snare for you.
4. When the messenger of the Lord had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud.
5. They named that place Bochim, and they offered sacrifice there to the Lord.
6. Then Joshua dismissed the people, and the Israelites went, each to their own heritage, to take possession of the land.
7. The people served the Lord during the entire lifetime of Joshua, and of those elders who outlived Joshua and who had seen all the great work the Lord had done for Israel.
8. Joshua, son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten,
9. and they buried him within the borders of his heritage at Timnath-heres in the mountain region of Ephraim north of Mount Gaash.
10. When the rest of that generation were also gathered to their ancestors, and a later generation arose that did not know the Lord or the work he had done for Israel,
11. the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They served the Baals,
12. and abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the one who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods, the gods of the peoples around them, and bowed down to them, and provoked the Lord.
13. Because they had abandoned the Lord and served Baal and the Astartes,