1 AFTER THE death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord, Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them? 2 And the Lord said, Judah shall go up; behold, I have delivered the land into his hand. 3 And Judah [the tribe] said to [the tribe of] Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my allotted territory, so that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with you into your territory. So Simeon went with him. 4 Then Judah went up and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they smote 10,000 of them in Bezek. 5 And they found Adoni-bezek in Bezek and fought against him, and they smote the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 6 Adoni-bezek fled, but they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and his big toes. 7 Adoni-bezek said, Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off had to gather their food under my table. As I have done, so God has repaid me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.
8 And the men of Judah fought against [Jebusite] Jerusalem and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire. 9 Afterward the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the hill country, in the South (the Negeb), and in the lowland. 10 And Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron. The name of Hebron before was Kiriath-arba. And they defeated Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai.
11 From there [Judah] went against the inhabitants of Debir. The name of Debir before was Kiriath-sepher [city of books and scribes]. 12 And Caleb said, Whoever attacks Kiriath-sepher and takes it, to him will I give Achsah, my daughter, as wife. 13 And Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it; and he gave him Achsah, his daughter, as wife. 14 And when she came to [Othniel], she got his consent to ask her father for a [sloping] field. And she alighted off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, What do you want? 15 And she said to him, Give me a present; since you have set me in the land of the South (the Negeb), give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.
16 And the descendants of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, went up with the Judahites from the City of Palms (Jericho) into the Wilderness of Judah, which lies in the South (the Negeb) near Arad; and they went and dwelt with the people. 17 And [the tribe of] Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they slew the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath and utterly destroyed it. So the city was called Hormah [destruction]. 18 Also Judah took Gaza, Askelon, and Ekron--each with its territory. 19 The Lord was with Judah, and [Judah] drove out the inhabitants of the hill country, but he could not drive out those inhabiting the [difficult] valley basin because they had chariots of iron. 20 Hebron was given to Caleb as Moses said, and he expelled from there the three sons of Anak. 21 But the Benjamites did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem; the Jebusites dwell with the Benjamites in Jerusalem to this day.
22 The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 23 And the house of Joseph was sent to spy out Bethel. The name of the city formerly had been Luz. 24 And the spies saw a man coming out of the city and they said to him, Show us, we pray you, the way into the city and we will show you mercy. 25 When he showed them the entrance to the city, they smote the city with the sword, but they let the man and all his family go. 26 And the man went into the land of the Hittites and built a city and called it Luz, which is its name to this day.