A reading from the Book of Judges

Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgall to Bokham, and he said,

I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.

I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.

You shall break down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice.

What is this you have done?

So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides,

and their God shall be a snare to you.

As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel,

the people lifted up their voices and wept, and they called the name of that place, Bokom,

and they sacrificed there to the Lord. When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel

went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land, and the people served the

Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen

all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua, the son of nun, the servant of the

Lord, died at the age of 110 years, and they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in

Timnath Heeres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaiash. And all that generation

also were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know

the Lord, or the work that he had done for Israel.

And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Bales.

And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them

and bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger.

They abandoned the Lord and served the Bales and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled

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