Study Desk

So that day Moses promised me, ‘The land where you went will become your land, and your children will own it forever. I will give you that land because you fully believed in the Lord , my God.'

Hebron still belongs to the family of Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite because he had faith and obeyed the Lord , the God of Israel.

You also will have the mountain country. It is a forest, but you can cut down the trees and make it a good place to live. You will own all of it because you will force the Canaanites to leave the land even though they have powerful weapons and are strong."

But the Levites do not get any part of these lands, because they are priests, and their work is to serve the Lord . Gad, Reuben, and East Manasseh have received the land promised to them, which is east of the Jordan River. Moses, the servant of the Lord , gave it to them."

(But the Danites had trouble taking their land. They went and fought against Leshem, defeated it, and killed the people who lived there. So the Danites moved into the town of Leshem and changed its name to Dan, because he was the father of their tribe.)

Remember what happened at Peor? We still suffer today because of that sin, for which God made many Israelites very sick.

Remember how Achan son of Zerah refused to obey the command about what must be completely destroyed. That one man broke God's law, but all the Israelites were punished. Achan died because of his sin, but others also died.'"

With his help, one Israelite could defeat a thousand, because the Lord your God fights for you, as he promised to do.

Then he forced out all the people living in these lands, even the Amorites. So we will serve the Lord , because he is our God."

Then Joshua said, "You are not able to serve the Lord , because he is a holy God and a jealous God. If you turn against him and sin, he will not forgive you.

The Lord was with the men of Judah. They took the land in the mountains, but they could not force out the people living on the plain, because they had iron chariots.

There were Canaanites living in the cities of Beth Shan, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, Megiddo, and the small towns around them. The people of Manasseh did not force those people out of their towns, because the Canaanites were determined to stay there.

When the Israelites went out to fight, they always lost, because the Lord was not with them. The Lord had sworn to them this would happen. So the Israelites suffered very much.

Again the people of Israel did what the Lord said was wrong. So the Lord gave Eglon king of Moab power to defeat Israel because of the evil Israel did.

They waited for a long time. Finally they became worried because he still had not opened the doors. So they got the key and unlocked them and saw their king lying dead on the floor!

Because he had nine hundred iron chariots and was very cruel to the people of Israel for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.

At that time they chose to follow new gods. Because of this, enemies fought us at our city gates. No one could find a shield or a spear among the forty thousand people of Israel.

‘May the town of Meroz be cursed,' said the angel of the Lord . ‘Bitterly curse its people, because they did not come to help the Lord . They did not fight the strong enemy.'

Because the Midianites were very powerful and were cruel to Israel, the Israelites made hiding places in the mountains, in caves, and in safe places.

Israel became very poor because of the Midianites, so they cried out to the Lord .