Hello and welcome to the Scriptures a Real podcast. This is the podcast where we talk about things that have made the scriptures become real to us because we think there's a power in the scriptures and then we can

apply them better when we see how real they are and we need that power on that application in our

lives. I'm your host, Kerry Mealstein, and I'm going to do a series of shortcasts to cover the

book of judges. So I've done a longer one where I talked with Jeff Chadwick and then I'm going to

do several shorter ones

to cover the stories and the major lessons that we should get from the stories and some elements

in those that really become real to me and make the scriptures become real to me. So I think

we'll do three, and none of them will be very long. So let me just start out by talking about just the,

what we can learn. So the first part of the reading is judges for come follow me is judges two through

four. And the judges chapter two provides a summary for us where it talks about how first of all that

Joshua dies but that the Israelites go through a cycle and in this cycle they serve other

gods and then the Lord humbles them and then they repent and then he raises up a judge, and then that judge delivers them.

And we see a very similar thing among the Nephites.

In the Nephites, we call it the pride cycle.

Among the Israelites, we often call it the idolatry cycle, but I think they both fit into a larger

pattern, which I would call the covenant corruption cycle, meaning that as we keep the covenant,

we receive blessings, those blessings are prosperity or deliverance or redemption and all sorts of

other things, having a promised land that we're safe in and so on. But then we start to think

that those blessings come because of ourselves and so on. But then we start to think that those blessings

come because of ourselves instead of God. And so we stop really keeping our covenant. That may take

the form of being lifted up in our pride and not taking care of other people and not listening to

God. It may be in the form of idolatry and worshiping false gods, whatever form that takes. And we

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