Deliverance by Othniel

2:16The LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.

2:17Yet they didn’t listen to their judges; for they prostituted themselves to other gods, and bowed themselves down to them. They quickly turned away from the way in which their fathers walked, obeying the LORD’s commandments. They didn’t do so.

2:18When the LORD raised up judges for them, then the LORD was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it grieved the LORD because of their groaning by reason of those who oppressed them and troubled them.

2:19But when the judge was dead, they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down to them. They didn’t cease what they were doing, or give up their stubborn ways.

2:20The LORD’s anger burned against Israel; and he said, “Because this nation transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to my voice,

2:21I also will no longer drive out any of the nations that Joshua left when he died from before them;

2:22that by them I may test Israel, to see if they will keep the LORD’s way to walk therein, as their fathers kept it, or not.”

2:23So the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily. He didn’t deliver them into Joshua’s hand.

3:1Now these are the nations which the LORD left, to test Israel by them, even as many as had not known all the wars of Canaan;

3:2only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at least those who knew nothing of it before:

3:3the five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath.

3:4They were left to test Israel by them, to know whether they would listen to the LORD’s commandments, which he commanded their fathers by Moses.