1 These are the nations that the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had no firsthand knowledge of the wars of Canaan.
2 They survived only to teach war to the generations of Israelites who had no firsthand knowledge of the earlier wars:
3 the five rulers of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, Sidonians, and Hivites who lived in the highlands of Lebanon from Mount Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath.
4 They were to be the test for Israel, to find out whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had made to their ancestors through Moses.