11 Now after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel made request to the Lord, saying, Who is to go up first to make war for us against the Canaanites? 2 And the Lord said, Judah is to go up: see, I have given the land into his hands. 3 Then Judah said to Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my heritage, so that we may make war against the Canaanites; and I will then go with you into your heritage. So Simeon went with him. 4 And Judah went up; and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands; and they overcame ten thousand of them in Bezek. 5 And they came across Adoni-zedek, and made war on him; and they overcame the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 6 But Adoni-zedek went in flight; and they went after him and overtook him, and had his thumbs and his great toes cut off. 7 And Adoni-zedek said, Seventy kings, whose thumbs and great toes had been cut off, got broken meat under my table: as I have done, so has God done to me in full. And they took him to Jerusalem, and he came to his end there.
8 Then the children of Judah made an attack on Jerusalem, and took it, burning down the town after they had put its people to the sword without mercy.
9 After that the children of Judah went down to make war on the Canaanites living in the hill-country and in the south and in the lowlands. 10 And Caleb went against the Canaanites of Hebron: (now in earlier times Hebron was named Kiriath-arba:) and he put Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai to the sword.
11 And from there he went up against the people of Debir. (Now the name of Debir in earlier times was Kiriath-sepher.) 12 And Caleb said, I will give Achsah, my daughter, as wife to the man who overcomes Kiriath-sepher and takes it. 13 And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah for his wife. 14 Now when she came to him, he put into her mind the idea of requesting a field from her father: and she got down from her ass; and Caleb said to her, What is it? 15 And she said to him, Give me a blessing; because you have put me in a dry south-land, now give me springs of water. So Caleb gave her the higher spring and the lower spring.
16 Now Hobab the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, had come up out of the town of palm-trees, with the children of Judah, into the waste land of Arad; and he went and was living among the Amalekites; 17 And Judah went with Simeon, his brother, and overcame the Canaanites living in Zephath, and put it under the curse; and he gave the town the name of Hormah. 18 Then Judah took Gaza and its limit, and Ashkelon and its limit, and Ekron and its limit. 19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he took the hill-country for his heritage; but he was unable to make the people of the valley go out, for they had war-carriages of iron. 20 And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said; and he took the land of the three sons of Anak, driving them out from there.
21 And the children of Judah did not make the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem go out; the Jebusites are still living with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem.
22 And the family of Joseph went up against Beth-el, and the Lord was with them. 23 So they sent men to make a search round Beth-el. (Now the name of the town in earlier times was Luz.) 24 And the watchers saw a man coming out of the town, and said to him, If you will make clear to us the way into the town, we will be kind to you. 25 So he made clear to them the way into the town, and they put it to the sword; but they let the man and all his family get away safe. 26 And he went into the land of the Hittites, building a town there and naming it Luz: which is its name to this day.
27 And Manasseh did not take away the land of the people of Beth-shean and its daughter-towns, or of Taanach and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Dor and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Ibleam and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Megiddo and its daughter-towns, driving them out; but the Canaanites would go on living in that land. 28 And whenever Israel became strong, they put the Canaanites to forced work, without driving them out completely. 29 And Ephraim did not make the Canaanites who were living in Gezer go out; but the Canaanites went on living in Gezer among them.
30 Zebulun did not make the people of Kitron or the people of Nahalol go out; but the Canaanites went on living among them and were put to forced work. 31 And Asher did not take the land of the people of Acco, or Zidon, or Ahlab, or Achzib, or Helbah, or Aphik, or Rehob, driving them out; 32 But the Asherites went on living among the Canaanites, the people of the land, without driving them out. 33 Naphtali did not take the land of the people of Beth-shemesh or of Beth-anath, driving them out; but he was living among the Canaanites in the land; however, the people of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath were put to forced work. 34 And the children of Dan were forced into the hill-country by the Amorites, who would not let them come down into the valley; 35 For the Amorites would go on living in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim; but the children of Joseph became stronger than they, and put them to forced work. 36 And the limit of the Edomites went from the slope of Akrabbim from Sela and up.
21 Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, *** I took you out of Egypt, guiding you into the land which I gave by an oath to your fathers; and I said, My agreement with you will never be broken by me: 2 And you are to make no agreement with the people of this land; you are to see that their altars are broken down: but you have not given ear to my voice: what have you done? 3 And so I have said, I will not send them out from before you; but they will be a danger to you, and their gods will be a cause of falling to you. 4 Now on hearing these words which the angel of the Lord said to all the children of Israel, the people gave themselves up to loud crying and weeping. 5 And they gave that place the name of Bochim, and made offerings there to the Lord.
6 And Joshua let the people go away, and the children of Israel went, every man to his heritage, to take the land for themselves. 7 And the people were true to the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the responsible men who were still living after the death of Joshua, and had seen all the great work of the Lord which he had done for Israel. 8 And death came to Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, he being a hundred and ten years old. 9 And they put his body in the earth in the land of his heritage in Timnath-heres, in the hill-country of Ephraim to the north of Mount Gaash. 10 And in time death overtook all that generation; and another generation came after them, having no knowledge of the Lord or of the things which he had done for Israel.
11 And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord and became servants to the Baals; 12 And they gave up the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had taken them out of the land of Egypt, and went after other gods, the gods of the peoples round about them, worshipping them and moving the Lord to wrath. 13 And they gave up the Lord, and became the servants of Baal and the Astartes. 14 And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the hands of those who violently took their property, and into the hands of their haters all round them, so that they were forced to give way before them. 15 Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had taken his oath it would be; and things became very hard for them. 16 Then the Lord gave them judges, as their saviours from the hands of those who were cruel to them. 17 But still they would not give ear to their judges, but went after other gods and gave them worship; quickly turning from the way in which their fathers had gone, keeping the orders of the Lord; but they did not do so. 18 And whenever the Lord gave them judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and was their saviour from the hands of their haters all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved by their cries of grief because of those who were cruel to them. 19 But whenever the judge was dead, they went back and did more evil than their fathers, going after other gods, to be their servants and their worshippers; giving up nothing of their sins and their hard-hearted ways. 20 And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he said, Because this nation has not been true to my agreement which I made with their fathers, and has not given ear to my voice; 21 From now on I will not go on driving out from before them any of the nations which at the death of Joshua were still living in this land; 22 In order to put Israel to the test, and see if they will keep the way of the Lord, walking in it as their fathers did, or not. 23 So the Lord let those nations go on living in the land, not driving them out quickly, and did not give them up into the hands of Joshua.
31 Now these are the nations which the Lord kept in the land for the purpose of testing Israel by them, all those who had had no experience of all the wars of Canaan; 2 Only because of the generations of the children of Israel, for the purpose of teaching them war—only those who up till then had no experience of it; 3 The five chiefs of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites and the Zidonians and the Hivites living in Mount Lebanon, from the mountain Baal-hermon as far as Hamath: 4 For the purpose of testing Israel by them, to see if they would give ear to the orders of the Lord, which he had given to their fathers by the hand of Moses. 5 Now the children of Israel were living among the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites: 6 And they took as wives the daughters of these nations and gave their daughters to their sons, and became servants to their gods.
7 And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and put out of their minds the Lord their God, and became servants to the Baals and the Astartes.
8 So the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the hands of Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel were his servants for eight years. 9 And when the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord, he gave them a saviour, Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. 10 And the spirit of the Lord came on him and he became judge of Israel, and went out to war, and the Lord gave up Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, into his hands and he overcame him. 11 Then for forty years the land had peace, till the death of Othniel, the son of Kenaz.
12 Then the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes of the Lord; and the Lord made Eglon, king of Moab, strong against Israel, because they had done evil in the Lord's eyes. 13 And Eglon got together the people of Ammon and Amalek, and they went and overcame Israel and took the town of palm-trees. 14 And the children of Israel were servants to Eglon, king of Moab, for eighteen years. 15 Then when the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord, he gave them a saviour, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man; and the children of Israel sent an offering by him to Eglon, king of Moab. 16 So Ehud made himself a two-edged sword, a cubit long, which he put on at his right side under his robe. 17 And he took the offering to Eglon, king of Moab, who was a very fat man. 18 And after giving the offering, he sent away the people who had come with the offering. 19 But he himself, turning back from the stone images at Gilgal, said, I have something to say to you in secret, O king. And he said, Let there be quiet. Then all those who were waiting before him went out. 20 Then Ehud came in to him while he was seated by himself in his summer-house. And Ehud said, I have a word from God for you. And he got up from his seat. 21 And Ehud put out his left hand, and took the sword from his right side, and sent it into his stomach; 22 And the hand-part went in after the blade, and the fat was joined up over the blade; for he did not take the sword out of his stomach. And he went out into the ... 23 Then Ehud went out into the covered way, shutting the doors of the summer-house on him and locking them. 24 Now when he had gone, the king's servants came, and saw that the doors of the summer-house were locked; and they said, It may be that he is in his summer-house for a private purpose. 25 And they went on waiting till they were shamed, but the doors were still shut; so they took the key, and, opening them, saw their lord stretched out dead on the floor. 26 But Ehud had got away while they were waiting and had gone past the stone images and got away to Seirah. 27 And when he came there, he had a horn sounded in the hill-country of Ephraim, and all the children of Israel went down with him from the hill-country, and he at their head. 28 And he said to them, Come after me; for the Lord has given the Moabites, your haters, into your hands. So they went down after him and took the crossing-places of Jordan against Moab, and let no one go across. 29 At that time they put about ten thousand men of Moab to the sword, every strong man and every man of war; not a man got away. 30 So Moab was broken that day under the hand of Israel. And for eighty years the land had peace.
31 And after him came Shamgar, the son of Anath, who put to death six hundred Philistines with an ox-stick; and he was another saviour of Israel.
41 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, came back from the Jordan, and was guided by the Spirit in the waste land 2 For forty days, being tested by the Evil One. And he had no food in those days; and when they came to an end, he was in need of food. 3 And the Evil One said to him, If you are the Son of God, give orders to this stone to become bread. 4 And Jesus made answer to him, It has been said in the Writings, Bread is not man's only need. 5 And he took him up and let him see all the kingdoms of the earth in a minute of time. 6 And the Evil One said, I will give you authority over all these, and the glory of them, for it has been given to me, and I give it to anyone at my pleasure. 7 If then you will give worship to me, it will all be yours. 8 And Jesus in answer said to him, It has been said in the Writings, Give worship to the Lord your God, and be his servant only. 9 And he took him to Jerusalem and put him on the highest point of the Temple and said to him, If you are the Son of God, let yourself go down from here; for it is said in the Writings, 10 He will give his angels orders to take care of you: 11 And, In their hands they will keep you up, so that your foot may not be crushed against a stone. 12 And Jesus made answer and said to him, It is said in the Writings, You may not put the Lord your God to the test. 13 And when all these tests were ended the Evil One went away from him for a time.
14 And Jesus came back to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and the news of him went through all the country round about. 15 And he was teaching in their Synagogues and all men gave him praise.
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been as a child, and he went, as his way was, into the Synagogue on the Sabbath, and got up to give a reading. 17 And the book of the prophet Isaiah was given to him and, opening the book, he came on the place where it is said, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because I am marked out by him to give good news to the poor; he has sent me to make well those who are broken-hearted; to say that the prisoners will be let go, and the blind will see, and to make the wounded free from their chains, 19 To give knowledge that the year of the Lord's good pleasure is come. 20 And shutting the book he gave it back to the servant and took his seat: and the eyes of all in the Synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he said to them, Today this word has come true in your hearing. 22 And they were all giving witness, with wonder, to the words of grace which came from his mouth: and they said, Is not this the son of Joseph? 23 And he said to them, Without doubt you will say to me, Let the medical man make himself well: the things which to our knowledge were done at Capernaum, do them here in your country. 24 And he said to them, Truly I say to you, No prophet is honoured in his country. 25 Truly I say to you, There were a number of widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months and there was no food in the land; 26 But Elijah was not sent to one of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 And there were a number of lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and not one of them was made clean, but only Naaman the Syrian. 28 And all who were in the Synagogue were very angry when these things were said to them. 29 And they got up and took him out of the town to the edge of the mountain on which their town was, so that they might send him down to his death. 30 But he came through them and went on his way.
(Read Luke 4:1-13)
Christ's being led into the wilderness gave an advantage to the tempter; for there he was alone, none were with him by whose prayers and advice he might be helped in the hour of temptation. He who knew his own strength might give Satan advantage; but we may not, who know our own weakness. Being in all things made like unto his brethren, Jesus would, like the other children of God, live in dependence upon the Divine Providence and promise. The word of God is our sword, and faith in that word is our shield. God has many ways of providing for his people, and therefore is at all times to be depended upon in the way of duty. All Satan's promises are deceitful; and if he is permitted to have any influence in disposing of the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, he uses them as baits to insnare men to destruction. We should reject at once and with abhorrence, every opportunity of sinful gain or advancement, as a price offered for our souls; we should seek riches, honours, and happiness in the worship and service of God only. Christ will not worship Satan; nor, when he has the kingdoms of the world delivered to him by his Father, will he suffer any remains of the worship of the devil to continue in them. Satan also tempted Jesus to be his own murderer, by unfitting confidence in his Father's protection, such as he had no warrant for. Let not any abuse of Scripture by Satan or by men abate our esteem, or cause us to abandon its use; but let us study it still, seek to know it, and seek our defence from it in all kinds of assaults. Let this word dwell richly in us, for it is our life. Our victorious Redeemer conquered, not for himself only, but for us also. The devil ended all the temptation. Christ let him try all his force, and defeated him. Satan saw it was to no purpose to attack Christ, who had nothing in him for his fiery darts to fasten upon. And if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. Yet he departed but till the season when he was again to be let loose upon Jesus, not as a tempter, to draw him to sin, and so to strike at his head, at which he now aimed and was wholly defeated in; but as a persecutor, to bring Christ to suffer, and so to bruise his heel, which it was told him, he should have to do, and would do, though it would be the breaking of his own head, Genesis 3:15. Though Satan depart for a season, we shall never be out of his reach till removed from this present evil world.
(Read Luke 4:14-30)
Christ taught in their synagogues, their places of public worship, where they met to read, expound, and apply the word, to pray and praise. All the gifts and graces of the Spirit were upon him and on him, without measure. By Christ, sinners may be loosed from the bonds of guilt, and by his Spirit and grace from the bondage of corruption. He came by the word of his gospel, to bring light to those that sat in the dark, and by the power of his grace, to give sight to those that were blind. And he preached the acceptable year of the Lord. Let sinners attend to the Saviour's invitation when liberty is thus proclaimed. Christ's name was Wonderful; in nothing was he more so than in the word of his grace, and the power that went along with it. We may well wonder that he should speak such words of grace to such graceless wretches as mankind. Some prejudice often furnishes an objection against the humbling doctrine of the cross; and while it is the word of God that stirs up men's enmity, they will blame the conduct or manner of the speaker. The doctrine of God's sovereignty, his right to do his will, provokes proud men. They will not seek his favour in his own way; and are angry when others have the favours they neglect. Still is Jesus rejected by multitudes who hear the same message from his words. While they crucify him afresh by their sins, may we honour him as the Son of God, the Saviour of men, and seek to show we do so by our obedience.
