Judges 2:20-Judges 3:4 - The Lord Allows The Nations To Stay In Order To Test His People
20 Wherefore the LORD was angry with Israel and said, "Because this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice, 21 therefore henceforth I will not cast out one man before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died - 22 and that to prove Israel through them whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk therein as their fathers did or not." 23 And so the LORD left those nations alone, and drove them not out immediately, neither delivered them into the hands of Joshua.
1 These are the nations which the LORD left to tempt Israel, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan. 2 Only, for the learning of the generation of the children of Israel, which before knew nothing of war, 3 he left the five lords of the Philistines, and all the Cananites, the Sidonians, the Hivites that dwelt in mount Lebanon: even from mount Baalhermon unto Hamath. 4 Those remained to prove Israel by, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.