The Book of Judges... Reading this book is like watching a pendulum swing.  Back and forth, back and forth, the nation swings from listening to and following God to becoming complacent to intermarrying with the surrounding cultures to  following the foriegn gods they and their forebearers refused to utterly destroy to coming under the heavy hand of tribute to crying out to the God of their fathers to swinging back towards the faith they turned their back on and returning to the old ways that protected them in the wilderness.  Generation after generation the back and forth pendulum swings...from blessing to corruption to correction to punishment to an attempt to return to the God of Moses.  God gave them people who were strong believers and in fellowship with Him, whom we call the Judges of Israel, to correct, guide, teach, and reach out to His people.  This book, then, traces the history of Israel in the early days of their time in the Promised Land, and as such, shows us all how history repeats itself over and over if we choose to not learn from it... Judges ~ the book that tells of a fickle and often faithless people and their loving but often reproving Father Who was completely unwilling to lose them all forever.