7. After  this,  the  Israelites  grew  effeminate
as  to  fighting  any  more  against  their'  enemies,
but  applied  themselves  to  the  cultivation  of  the
land,  which  i^i-oducing  them  great  plenty  and
riches,  thej'  neglected  the  regiilar  disposition  of
their  settlement,  and  indulged  themselves  in
luxuiy  and  pleasures ;  nor  were  they  any
longer  careful  to  hear  the  laws  that  belonged  to
their  political  government :  whereupon  God  was
provoked  to  anger,  and  put  them  in  mind,  first,
how,  contrary  to  his  directions,  they  had  spared
the  Canaanites :  and,  after  that,  how  those
Canaanites,  as  opportunity  served,  used  them
-very  barbarously. But  the  Israelites,  though
they  were  in  heaviness  at  these  admonitions  from
God,  yet  were  they  still  very  unwilling  to  go  to
war  ;  and  since  they  got  large  tributes  from  the
Canaanites,  and  were  indisjaosed  for  taking  pains
by  their  luxuiy,  they  suffered  their  aristocracy
to  be  corrupted  .'dso,  and  did  not  ordain  them-
selves a  senate,  nor  any  other  such  magistrates
as  their  laws  had  formerly  requued,  but  they
were  very  much  given  to  cultivating  their  fields,
in  order  to  get  wealth  ;  which  great  indolence  of
theirs  brought  a  terrible  sedition  upon  them,
and  they  proceeded  so  far  as  to  fight  one  against
another,  from  the  following  occasion  : —


8._  There  v.'as  a  Levite,*  a  man  of  a  vulgar
family,  that  belonged  to  the  tribe  of  Ephraim,
and  dwelt  therein  :  this  man  married  a  wife
from  Bethlehem,  which  is  a  place  belonging  to
the  tribe  of  Judah. Now  he  was  very  fond  of
his  wife,  and  overcome  with  her  beauty ;  but  he
was  unhappy  in  this,  that  he  did  not  meet  with
the  like  return  of  affection  from  her,  for  she  was
averse  to  htm,  which  did  more  inflame  his  pas-
sion for  her,  so  that  they  quarrelled  one  -ndth
another  perpetuaDy  ;  and  at  last  the  woman  was
so  disgusted  at  these  quarrels,  that  she  left  her
husband,  and  went  to  her  parents  in  the  fourth
month. The  husband  being  very  uneasy  at  this
her  departure,  and  that  out  of  his  fondness  for
her,  came  to  his  father  and  mother-in-law,  and
made  up  their  quarrels,  and  was  reconciled  to
her,  and  lived  with  them  there  four  days,  as  being
kindly  treated  by  her  parents. 