The OT in 60 seconds

God created everything good. But Satan led Adam and Eve into disobeying God and ruining everything. Eventually it got so bad that God sent a flood and wiped out everyone except Noah and his family. When the people got cocky, and tried to make the Tower of Babel, God confused their language, so they scattered all over the earth. God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him to bless him and use him to bless everyone else (Gen 12:1-3). He has a son Isaac, who has Jacob, who has eleven sons. Jacob, after wrestling with God, gets the name Israel (it means “wrestles with God”). His sons become the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. The whole family moves to Egypt and are subjected to slavery for 300 years. Then God uses Moses to save them by bringing 12 plagues on Pharaoh and Egypt. Finally in the Exodus they escape through the parted waters of the Sea. On the other side, God gives his people Israel the Ten Commandments, and a bunch more. God wants to give them the Promised Land that he promised Abraham, but when they get to the edge of it, they’re afraid of the inhabitants, and so God makes them wander in the wilderness for forty years, where God provides for them. Joshua takes over for Moses and brings Israel through the parted Jordan River and they conquer a whole bunch of people and land. For a while God rules the nation of Israel through Judges, but the people were not obeying God. They followed other gods, so God let them be conquered. They repented, and God restored them. This happened seven times. Finally the people demand a king like all the other nations. The prophet Samuel appoints Saul king first, then David, the best king ever, despite some major sins. After that it’s pretty much downhill. The Kings after that are mostly rotten and the people too. Prophets keep telling the people to return to the ways of God, or else God will punish them, but they don’t listen. The kingdom gets divided into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah and eventually God let’s them both get destroyed by foreign armies. Israel is sent all over the place, dispersed in the Exile. Daniel serves the occupying Kings. The prophets tell the depressed people of Israel that God has not forgotten them and will send a Savior, a Messiah, and will restore Israel. Finally the King of Persia gives permission for the Israelites to return to the Land, and Ezra and Nehemiah help to rebuild, while Esther saves the Jews from being wiped out. The story of the Old Testament ends with the Jews waiting for the Messiah, to more fully restore Israel, as the prophets have predicted.