Judges 1  Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

1 After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord, Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?

² And the Lord said, Judah shall go up; behold, I have delivered the land into his hand.

³ And Judah [the tribe] said to [the tribe of] Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my allotted territory, so that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with you into your territory. So Simeon went with him.

⁴ Then Judah went up and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they smote 10,000 of them in Bezek.

⁵ And they found Adoni-bezek in Bezek and fought against him, and they smote the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

⁶ Adoni-bezek fled, but they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and his big toes.

⁷ Adoni-bezek said, Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off had to gather their food under my table. As I have done, so God has repaid me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.

⁸ And the men of Judah fought against [Jebusite] Jerusalem and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire.

⁹ Afterward the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the hill country, in the South (the Negeb), and in the lowland.

¹⁰ And Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron. The name of Hebron before was Kiriath-arba. And they defeated Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai.

¹¹ From there [Judah] went against the inhabitants of Debir. The name of Debir before was Kiriath-sepher [city of books and scribes].

¹² And Caleb said, Whoever attacks Kiriath-sepher and takes it, to him will I give Achsah, my daughter, as wife.

¹³ And Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it; and he gave him Achsah, his daughter, as wife.

¹⁴ And when she came to [Othniel], she got his consent to ask her father for a [sloping] field. And she alighted off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, What do you want?

¹⁵ And she said to him, Give me a present; since you have set me in the land of the South (the Negeb), give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.

¹⁶ And the descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up with the Judahites from the City of Palms (Jericho) into the Wilderness of Judah, which lies in the South (the Negeb) near Arad; and they went and dwelt with the people.

¹⁷ And [the tribe of] Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they slew the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath and utterly destroyed it. So the city was called Hormah [destruction].

¹⁸ Also Judah took Gaza, Askelon, and Ekron—each with its territory.

¹⁹ The Lord was with Judah, and [Judah] drove out the inhabitants of the hill country, but he could not drive out those inhabiting the [difficult] valley basin because they had chariots of iron.

²⁰ Hebron was given to Caleb as Moses said, and he expelled from there the three sons of Anak.^(A)

²¹ But the Benjamites did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem; the Jebusites dwell with the Benjamites in Jerusalem to this day.

²² The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them.

²³ And the house of Joseph was sent to spy out Bethel. The name of the city formerly had been Luz.

²⁴ And the spies saw a man coming out of the city and they said to him, Show us, we pray you, the way into the city and we will show you mercy.

²⁵ When he showed them the entrance to the city, they smote the city with the sword, but they let the man and all his family go.

²⁶ And the man went into the land of the Hittites and built a city and called it Luz, which is its name to this day.

²⁷ Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or of Taanach or Dor or Ibleam or Megiddo and their villages, but the Canaanites remained in that land.

²⁸ When Israel became strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor but did not utterly drive them out.

²⁹ Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer, but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.

³⁰ Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron or of Nahalol, but the Canaanites dwelt among them and were put to forced labor.

³¹ Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Acco or of Sidon or of Ahlab or of Achzib or of Helbah or of Aphik or of Rehob;

³² But the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out.

³³ Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh or of Beth-anath, but dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; but the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them.

³⁴ The Amorites forced the Danites back into the hill country, for they would not allow them to come down into the plain;

³⁵ The Amorites remained fixed in Mount Heres [mountain of the sun], in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim; yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became subject to forced labor.

³⁶ And the border of the Amorites was from the ascent of Akrabbim, from the rock Sela and onward.