Pray: "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law."

1. 1

   What do you learn about God (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) from this chapter? His thoughts, ways, or actions toward us, as His creation? How can you respond to God in prayer and praise?

2. 2

   Note: In chapter 1, we saw the failure and disobedience of Israel to drive out the people from the promised land. In chapter 2, we will see the discipline of the Lord and the resulting consequences for their disobedience.

3. 3

   In verses 1-5, what will God never do? What caused the Lord to stop driving out the inhabitants of the land? What did the Lord say the inhabitants of the land would become? How did the people respond?

4. 4

   According to verses 6-10, how long did the Israelites serve the Lord? How does it describe the generation after the generations of Joshua and the elders?

5. 5

   According to verses 11-15, Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. How does this section describe what was evil? What did this provoke in the Lord? What did the Lord do as a result of their rebellion? How did this affect the Israelites? Note: Baal was a Canaanite god of fertility. Notice the author uses "Baals," the plural of Baal, to indicate all the false gods of the Canaanites. Ashtoreth, according to Greek mythology, was the wife of Baal and the goddess of love, fertility, and war. For more info: https://www.gotquestions.org/Baal-and-Asherah.html.

6. 6

   In verses 16-23, the author describes the cyclical pattern that the Israelites will fall into and that will be covered in more detail throughout the remainder of the book. In verses 11-15, we saw Israel rebelled and served the Baals; what happens next according to verse 16? In verse 17, what did the people do? In verse 18, what would the Lord do? What moved the Lord to do this? In verse 19, what would happen when a judge died? What was the level of their corruption? In verses 20-23, we see the final result of the cycle. What did the Lord do? Why did the Lord do this? Write down the cyclical pattern you just discovered.

7. 7

   Ponder: The Israelites were rescued from the land of Egypt and finally brought into the promised land under the leadership of Joshua. All the people of Joshua's time, until the elders who served with Joshua had died, served and followed God. Then, the next generation did not follow God, but did evil and served the Baals. What happened? How did we go from serving God to evil and serving the Baals in ONE generation? Look again at verse 10. It says this generation did not know the Lord or the work He had done. What? How did they not know? One possible reason they did not know the Lord was the failure of their parents. In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Moses had instructed the people, back in the wilderness, that they were to diligently teach their children what He had done for them and to love Him with all their heart, soul, and might. They were finally in the land of promise, no more wandering around in the wilderness, and things were going well for them. Did their parents get comfortable with the new lush land of plenty? Did the urgency to depend on the Lord for everything get lost, so they didn't diligently teach their children? Or did they teach them, but their children were too comfortable in the land? Did the enticement of the sin of the nations around them, who were not driven out, lead them to disbelief in God, and therefore they did not know God? Whatever happened, it was just as the Lord said; the nations' gods became a snare, and they turned from the one true God to serve the Baals. What about us? We live in a nation where many have rejected God and turned to the Baals (false gods of Islam, Mormonism, Buddhism, New Ageism, all the "ims"). Gratifying and glorifying self is also a god our culture pursues. We have the same choice the Israelites had; whom will we serve and obey? Whom will we declare to a dying and lost world? Will we diligently teach our children to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and might? How does this lead you to pray?