And from there he went up against the people of Debir. (Now the name of Debir in earlier times was Kiriath-sepher.)

Now when she came to him, he put into her mind the idea of requesting a field from her father: and she got down from her ass; and Caleb said to her, What is it?

And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said; and he took the land of the three sons of Anak, driving them out from there.

And the limit of the Edomites went from the slope of Akrabbim from Sela and up.

Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, *** I took you out of Egypt, guiding you into the land which I gave by an oath to your fathers; and I said, My agreement with you will never be broken by me:

And so I have said, I will not send them out from before you; but they will be a danger to you, and their gods will be a cause of falling to you.

Then the Lord gave them judges, as their saviours from the hands of those who were cruel to them.

But still they would not give ear to their judges, but went after other gods and gave them worship; quickly turning from the way in which their fathers had gone, keeping the orders of the Lord; but they did not do so.

And whenever the Lord gave them judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and was their saviour from the hands of their haters all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved by their cries of grief because of those who were cruel to them.

From now on I will not go on driving out from before them any of the nations which at the death of Joshua were still living in this land;

The five chiefs of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites and the Zidonians and the Hivites living in Mount Lebanon, from the mountain Baal-hermon as far as Hamath:

But he himself, turning back from the stone images at Gilgal, said, I have something to say to you in secret, O king. And he said, Let there be quiet. Then all those who were waiting before him went out.

Then Ehud came in to him while he was seated by himself in his summer-house. And Ehud said, I have a word from God for you. And he got up from his seat.

And Ehud put out his left hand, and took the sword from his right side, and sent it into his stomach;

And when he came there, he had a horn sounded in the hill-country of Ephraim, and all the children of Israel went down with him from the hill-country, and he at their head.

And she sent for Barak, the son of Abinoam, from Kedesh-naphtali, and said to him, Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, given orders saying, Go and get your force into line in Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?

Now Heber the Kenite, separating himself from the rest of the Kenites, from the children of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses, had put up his tent as far away as the oak-tree in Zaanannim, by Kedesh.

So Sisera got together all his war-carriages, nine hundred war-carriages of iron, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles as far as the river Kishon.

Then Deborah said to Barak, Up! for today the Lord has given Sisera into your hands: has not the Lord gone out before you? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor and ten thousand men after him.

And the Lord sent fear on Sisera and all his war-carriages and all his army before Barak; and Sisera got down from his war-carriage and went in flight on foot.

Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a tent-pin and a hammer and went up to him quietly, driving the pin into his head, and it went through his head into the earth, for he was in a deep sleep from weariness; and so he came to his end.

Lord, when you went out from Seir, moving like an army from the field of Edom, the earth was shaking and the heavens were troubled, and the clouds were dropping water.

Out of Ephraim they came down into the valley; after you, Benjamin, among your tribesmen; from Machir came down the captains, and from Zebulun those in whose hand is the ruler's rod.

The stars from heaven were fighting; from their highways they were fighting against Sisera.

Looking out from the window she gave a cry, the mother of Sisera was crying out through the window, Why is his carriage so long in coming? When will the noise of his wheels be sounding?

The Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, The Lord the God of Israel, has said, I took you up from Egypt, out of the prison-house;

And I took you out of the hands of the Egyptians and out of the hands of all who were cruel to you, and I sent them out by force from before you and gave you their land;

And the Lord, turning to him, said, Go in the strength you have and be Israel's saviour from Midian: have I not sent you?

And it was so: for he got up early on the morning after, and twisting the wool in his hands, he got a basin full of water from the dew on the wool.

So now, let it be given out to the people that anyone who is shaking with fear is to go back from Mount Galud. So twenty-two thousand of the people went back, but there were still ten thousand.

So they took the vessels of the people, and their horns from their hands, and he sent them away, every man to his tent, keeping only the three hundred; and the tents of Midian were lower down in the valley.

Then they made a line round the tents, every man in his place; and all the army, awaking from sleep, came running out, and with loud cries went in flight.

And the men of Israel came together from Naphtali and from Asher and all Manasseh, and went after Midian.

And he said to them, What have I done in comparison with you? Is not that which Ephraim took up after the grape-cutting better than all the grapes which Abiezer got in from the grape-cutting?

So he went up from there to Penuel and made the same request to the men of Penuel; but they gave him the same answer as the men of Succoth had given.

Then Gideon, the son of Joash, went back from the fight:

And taking prisoner a young man of the people of Succoth, he got from him, in answer to his questions, a list of the chiefs of Succoth and the responsible men, seventy-seven men.

Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, Be our ruler, you and your son and your son's son after him; for you have been our saviour from the hands of Midian.

The weight of the gold ear-rings which he got from them was one thousand, seven hundred shekels of gold; in addition to the moon-ornaments and jewels and the purple robes which were on the kings of Midian, and the chains on their camels' necks.

And Gideon made an ephod from them and put it up in his town Ophrah; and all Israel went after it there and were false to the Lord; and it became a cause of sin to Gideon and his house.

And the children of Israel did not keep in their minds the Lord their God, who had been their saviour from all their haters on every side;

And they gave him seventy shekels of silver from the house of Baal-berith, with which Abimelech got the support of a number of uncontrolled and good-for-nothing persons.

(For my father made war for you, and put his life in danger, and made you free from the hands of Midian;

But if not, may fire come out from Abimelech, burning up the townsmen of Shechem and Beth-millo; and may fire come out from the townsmen of Shechem and Beth-millo, for the destruction of Abimelech.

And Gaal, the son of Ebed, went out, and took his place at the doorway into the town; then Abimelech and his people got up from the place where they had been waiting.

And when Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, See! people are coming down from the tops of the mountains. And Zebul said to him, You see the shade of the mountains like men.

And Gaal said again, See! people are coming down from the middle of the land, and one band is coming by way of the oak-tree of the Seers.

And the Zidonians and Amalek and Midian crushing you down, and in answer to your cry did I not give you salvation from their hands?

So they put away the strange gods from among them, and became the Lord's servants; and his soul was angry because of the sorrows of Israel.

So Jephthah went in flight from his brothers and was living in the land of Tob, where a number of good-for-nothing men, joining Jephthah, went out with him on his undertakings.

And when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the responsible men of Gilead went to get Jephthah back from the land of Tob;

But Jephthah said to the responsible men of Gilead, Did you not, in your hate for me, send me away from my father's house? Why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?

And the king of the children of Ammon said to the men sent by Jephthah, Because Israel, when he came up out of Egypt, took away my land, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and as far as Jordan: so now, give me back those lands quietly.

But when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the waste land to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh;

All the limit of the Amorites was theirs, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and from the waste land even to Jordan.

So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has taken away their land from the Amorites and given it to his people Israel; are you then to have it?

Do you not keep the lands of those whom Chemosh your god sends out from before you? So we will keep all the lands of those whom the Lord our God sends out from before us.

Then the spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah, and he went through Gilead and Manasseh, and came to Mizpeh of Gilead; and from Mizpeh of Gilead he went over to the children of Ammon.

Then whoever comes out from the door of my house, meeting me when I come back in peace from the children of Ammon, will be the Lord's and I will give him as a burned offering.

And he made an attack on them from Aroer all the way to Minnith, overrunning twenty towns, as far as Abel-cheramim, and put great numbers to the sword. So the children of Ammon were crushed before the children of Israel.

So when I saw that there was no help to be had from you, I put my life in my hand and went over against the children of Ammon, and the Lord gave them into my hands: why then have you come up to me this day to make war on me?

He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters whom he sent to other places, and he got thirty wives from other places for his sons. And he was judge of Israel for seven years.

For you are with child and will give birth to a son; his hair is never to be cut, for the child is to be separate to God from his birth; and he will take up the work of freeing Israel from the hands of the Philistines.

Then the woman came in, and said to her husband, A man came to me, and his form was like the form of a god, causing great fear; I put no question to him about where he came from, and he did not give me his name;

But he said to me, You are with child and will give birth to a son; and now do not take any wine or strong drink or let anything unclean be your food; for the child will be separate to God from his birth to the day of his death.

She is to have nothing which comes from the vine for her food, and let her take no wine or strong drink or anything which is unclean; let her take care to do all I have given her orders to do.

And when the flame went up to heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar, while Manoah and his wife were looking on; and they went down on their faces to the earth.

Then after a time he went back to take her; and turning from the road to see the dead body of the lion, he saw a mass of bees in the body of the lion, and honey there.

And he took the honey in his hand, and went on, tasting it on the way; and when he came to his father and mother he gave some to them; but did not say that he had taken the honey from the body of the lion.

So on the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, Get from your husband the answer to his question by some trick or other, or we will have you and your father's house burned with fire; did you get us here to take all we have?

And the spirit of the Lord came rushing on him, and he went down to Ashkelon and, attacking thirty men there, took their clothing from them, and gave it to the men who had given the answer to his hard question. Then, full of wrath, he went back to his father's house.

And Samson said to them, If you go on like this, truly I will take my full payment from you; and that will be the end of it.

And they said, No; we will take you and give you up into their hands, but truly we will not put you to death. So knotting two new cords round him they took him up from the rock.

So while he was sleeping she got the seven twists of his hair worked into her cloth and fixed with the pin, and said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. Then awaking from his sleep, he got up quickly, pulling up cloth and machine together.

And opening all his heart to her, he said to her, My head has never been touched by a blade, for I have been separate to God from the day of my birth: if my hair is cut off, then my strength will go from me and I will become feeble, and will be like any other man.

And she made him go to sleep on her knees; and she sent for a man and had his seven twists of hair cut off; and while it was being done he became feeble and his strength went from him.

Then she said, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And awaking from his sleep, he said, I will go out as at other times, shaking myself free. But he was not conscious that the Lord had gone from him.

And Samson, crying out to the Lord, said, O Lord God, do have me now in mind, and do make me strong only this once, O God, so that I may take one last payment from the Philistines for my two eyes.

And he said to his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver which were taken from you, about which you took an oath and said in my hearing, I have given this silver to the Lord from my hand for myself, to make a pictured image and a metal image: see, I have the silver, for I took it: so now I will give it back to you. And his mother said, May the blessing of the Lord be on my son.

And he gave back the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, and his mother said, I have made the silver holy to the Lord from me for my son, to make a pictured image and a metal image.

So he gave the silver back to his mother. Then his mother took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a metal-worker who made a pictured image and a metal image from them: and it was in the house of Micah.

And he went away from the town of Beth-lehem-judah, looking for somewhere to make his living-place; and on his journey he came to the hill-country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah.

And Micah said to him, Where do you come from? And he said to him, I am a Levite from Beth-lehem-judah, and I am looking for a living-place.

So the children of Dan sent five men from among their number, strong men, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to take a look at the land and make a search through it; and they said to them, Go and make a search through the land; and they came to the hill-country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, where they made a stop for the night.

Then they said, Do get directions from God for us, to see if the journey on which we are going will have a good outcome.

Then the five men went on their way and came to Laish and saw the people who were there, living without thought of danger, like the Zidonians, quiet and safe; for they had everything on earth for their needs, and they were far from the Zidonians and had no business with Aram.

So six hundred men of the Danites from Zorah and Eshtaol went out armed with instruments of war.

From there they went on to the hill-country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah.

And turning from their road they came to the house of the young Levite, the house of Micah, and said to him, Is it well with you?

When they had gone some way from the house of Micah, the men from the houses near Micah's house came together and overtook the children of Dan,

And they had no saviour, because it was far from Zidon, and they had no business with Aram; and it was in the valley which is the property of Beth-rehob. And building up the town again they took it for their living-place.

Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was living in the inmost parts of the hill-country of Ephraim, and he got for himself a servant-wife from Beth-lehem-judah.

And his servant-wife was angry with him, and went away from him to her father's house at Beth-lehem-judah, and was there for four months.

When they got near Jebus the day was far gone; and the servant said to his master, Now let us go from our road into this town of the Jebusites and take our night's rest there.

Now when it was evening they saw an old man coming back from his work in the fields; he was from the hill-country of Ephraim and was living in Gibeah: but the men of the place were Benjamites.

And when he saw the traveller in the street of the town, the old man said, Where are you going? and where do you come from?

And he said to him, We are on our way from Beth-lehem-judah to the inmost parts of the hill-country of Ephraim: I came from there and went to Beth-lehem-judah: now I am on my way back to my house, but no man will take me into his house.

And he gave orders to the men whom he sent, saying, This is what you are to say to all the men of Israel, Has ever an act like this been done from the day when the children of Israel came out of Egypt to this day? Give thought to it, turning it over in your minds, and give your opinion of it.

Then all the children of Israel took up arms, and the people came together like one man, from Dan to Beer-sheba, and the land of Gilead, before the Lord at Mizpah.

Now give up those good-for-nothing persons in Gibeah so that we may put them to death, clearing away the evil from Israel. But the children of Benjamin would not give ear to the voice of their brothers, the children of Israel.