2. The second and main section (ii. 6-xvi.) stands on quite another footing. According to Josh. xxiv. 31 the people "served Yahweh" during the lifetime of the great conqueror and his contemporaries. In Judg. ii. 7 this statement is repeated, and the writer proceeds to explain that subsequent generations fell away from the faith, and served the gods of the nations among which they dwelt (ii. 6-iii. 6). The worship of other gods is represented, not as something which went on side by side with Yahweh-worship (cf. x. 6), but as a revolt against Yahweh, periodically repeated and regularly chastised by foreign invasion. The history, therefore, falls into recurring cycles, each of which begins with religious corruption, followed by chastisement, which continues until Yahweh, in answer to the groans of his oppressed people, raises up a "judge" to deliver Israel, and recall them to the true faith. On the death of the "judge," if not sooner, the corruption spreads anew and the same vicissitudes follow. This religious explanation of the course of the history, formally expounded at the outset and repeated in more or less detail from chapter to chapter (especially vi. 1-10, x. 6-18), determines the form of the whole narrative. It is in general agreement with the spirit as also with the language of Deuteronomy, and on this account this section may be conveniently called "the Deuteronomic Book of Judges." But the main religious ideas are not so late and are rather akin to those of Josh. xxiv; in particular the worship of the high places is not condemned, nor is it excused as in 1 Kings iii. 2. The sources of the narrative are obviously older than the theological exposition of its lessons, and herein lies the value and interest of Judges. The importance of such documents for the scientific historian lies not so much in the events they record as in the unconscious witness they bear to the state of society in which the narrator or poet lived. From this point of view the parts of the book are by no means all of equal value; critical analysis shows that often parallel or distinct narratives have been fused together, and that, whilst the older stories gave more prominence to ordinary human motives and combinations, the later are coloured by religious reflection and show the characteristic tendency of the Old Testament to re-tell the fortunes of Israel in a form that lays ever-increasing weight on the work of Yahweh for his people. That the pre-Deuteronomic sources are to be identified with the Judaean (J, or Yahwist) and Ephraimite (E, or Elohist) strands of the Hexateuch is, however, not certain.