And at the death of Jair his body was put to rest in the earth in Kamon.

And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the children of Ammon.

And the children of Ammon went over Jordan, to make war against Judah and Benjamin and the house of Ephraim; and Israel was in great trouble.

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.

Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a great man of war; he was the son of a loose woman, and Gilead was his father.

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.

Then he went on through the waste land and round the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and put up their tents on the other side of the Arnon; they did not come inside the limit of Moab, for the Arnon was the limit of Moab.

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

While Israel was living in Heshbon and its daughter-towns and in Aroer and its daughter-towns and in all the towns which are by the side of the Arnon, for three hundred years, why did you not get them back at that time?

Then Jephthah came back to his house in Mizpah, and his daughter came out, meeting him on his way with music and with dances; she was his only child; he had no other sons or daughters.

And when he saw her he was overcome with grief, and said, Ah! my daughter! I am crushed with sorrow, and it is you who are the chief cause of my trouble; for I have made an oath to the Lord and I may not take it back.

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?

Then they said to him, Now say Shibboleth; and he said Sibboleth, and was not able to say it in the right way; then they took him and put him to death at the crossing-places of Jordan; and at that time forty-two thousand Ephraimites were put to death.

Now Jephthah was judge of Israel for six years. And Jephthah the Gileadite came to his death, and his body was put to rest in his town, Mizpeh of Gilead.

And after him, Ibzan of Beth-lehem was judge of Israel.

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.

And Ibzan came to his death and his body was put to rest at Beth-lehem.

And after him, Elon the Zebulonite was judge of Israel; and he was judge of Israel for ten years.

And Elon the Zebulonite came to his death, and his body was put to rest in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

And after him, Abdon, the son of Hillel, the Pirathonite, was judge of Israel.

He had forty sons and thirty sons' sons who went on seventy young asses; and he was judge of Israel for eight years.

And Abdon, the son of Hillel, came to his death, and his body was put to rest in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill-country of the Amalekites.

Now there was a certain man of Zorah of the family of the Danites, and his name was Manoah; and his wife had never given birth to a child.

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;

And God gave ear to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came to the woman again when she was seated in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her.

And Manoah got up and went after his wife, and came up to the man and said to him, Are you the man who was talking to this woman? And he said, I am.

And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Though you keep me I will not take of your food; but if you will make a burned offering, let it be offered to the Lord. For it had not come into Manoah's mind that he was the angel of the Lord.

But the angel of the Lord was seen no more by Manoah and his wife. Then it was clear to Manoah that he was the angel of the Lord.

But his wife said to him, If the Lord was purposing our death, he would not have taken our burned offering and our meal offering, or have given us such orders about the child.

So the woman gave birth to a son, and gave him the name Samson; and he became a man and the blessing of the Lord was on him.

Now his father and mother had no knowledge that this was the purpose of the Lord, who had the destruction of the Philistines in mind. Now the Philistines at that time were ruling over Israel.

And the spirit of the Lord came on him with power, and, unarmed as he was, pulling the lion in two as one might do to a young goat, he put him to death; (but he said nothing to his father and mother of what he had done.)

So he went down and had talk with the woman; and she was pleasing to Samson.

Then Samson went down to the woman, and made a feast there, as was the way among young men.

But Samson's wife was given to the friend who had been his best man.

And having said these words, he let the mouth-bone go out of his hand; so that place was named Ramath-lehi.

After this, he was in great need of water, and crying out to the Lord, he said, You have given this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and now need of water will be my death; and I will be given into the hands of this people who are without circumcision.

Then God made a crack in the hollow rock in Lehi and water came out of it; and after drinking, his spirit came back to him and he was strong again; so that place was named En-hakkore; it is in Lehi to this day.

And he was judge of Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years.

And it was said to the Gazites, Samson is here. So they went round, watching for him all day at the doorway of the town, but at night they kept quiet, saying, When daylight comes we will put him to death.

And Samson was there till the middle of the night; then he got up, and took a grip on the doors of the town, pulling them up, together with their two supports and their locks, and put them on his back and took them up to the top of the hill in front of Hebron.

Now after this, he was in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, named Delilah.

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.

So day after day she gave him no peace, for ever questioning him till his soul was troubled to death.

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.

But the growth of his hair was starting again after it had been cut off.

And when the people saw him, they gave praise to their god; for they said, Our god has given into our hands the one who was fighting against us, who made our country waste, and who put great numbers of us to death.

Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and about three thousand men and women were on the roof, looking on while Samson made sport.

Now there was a man of the hill-country of Ephraim named Micah.

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.

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did as seemed right to him.

Now there was a young man living in Beth-lehem-judah, of the family of Judah and a Levite, who was not a townsman of the place.

And Micah gave the position to the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah.

In those days there was no king in Israel, and in those days the Danites were looking for a heritage for themselves, to be their living-place; for up to that time no distribution of land had been made to them among the tribes of Israel.

When they were near the house of Micah, hearing a voice which was not strange to them, that of the young Levite, they went out of their road to his place, and said to him, How did you come here? and what are you doing in this place? and why are you here?

Then the five men who had gone to make a search through the land, went in and took the pictured image and the ephod and the family gods and the metal image; and the priest was by the doorway with the six hundred armed men.

Then the priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod and the family gods and the pictured image and went with the people.

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.

And they gave the town the name of Dan, after Dan their father, who was the son of Israel: though the town had been named Laish at first.

(And the children of Dan put up the pictured image for themselves; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of the Danites till the day when the ark was taken prisoner.)

And they put up for themselves the image which Micah had made, and it was there all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.

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.

Then at the dawn of day the woman came, and, falling down at the door of the man's house where her master was, was stretched there till it was light.

And he said to her, Get up and let us be going; but there was no answer; so he took her up and put her on the ass, and went on his way and came to his house.

And the townsmen of Gibeah came together against me, going round the house on all sides by night; it was their purpose to put me to death, and my servant-wife was violently used by them and is dead.

And the children of Israel made request to the Lord, (for the ark of the agreement of the Lord was there in those days,

And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was in his place before it,) and said, Am I still to go on with the fight against the children of Benjamin my brother, or am I to give it up? And the Lord said, Go on; for tomorrow I will give him into your hands.

And they came in front of Gibeah, ten thousand of the best men in all Israel, and the fighting became more violent; but the children of Benjamin were not conscious that evil was coming on them.

Now the sign fixed between the men of Israel and those making the surprise attack was that when they made a pillar of smoke go up from the town,

And the men of Israel, turning again against the children of Benjamin, put to the sword without mercy all the towns and the cattle and everything there was, burning every town which came into their hands.

And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel, who did not come up to the Lord at the meeting of all Israel? For they had taken a great oath that whoever did not come up to Mizpah to the Lord was to be put to death.

And they said, Which one of the tribes of Israel did not come up to Mizpah to the Lord? And it was seen that no one had come from Jabesh-gilead to the meeting.

For when the people were numbered, not one man of the people of Jabesh-gilead was present.

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did what seemed right to him.

Now there came a time, in the days of the judges, when there was no food in the land. And a certain man went from Beth-lehem-judah, he and his wife and his two sons, to make a living-place in the country of Moab.

And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Beth-lehem-judah. And they came into the country of Moab, and were there for some time.

And they took two women of Moab as their wives: the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth; and they went on living there for about ten years.

And Mahlon and Chilion came to their end; and the woman was without her two sons and her husband.

And she went out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her; and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah.

And when she saw that Ruth was strong in her purpose to go with her she said no more.

So the two of them went on till they came to Beth-lehem. And when they came to Beth-lehem all the town was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?

And Naomi had a relation of her husband, a man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz.

And she went, and came and took up the heads of grain in the field after the cutters; and by chance she went into that part of the field which was the property of Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.

Then Boaz said to his servant who was in authority over the cutters, Whose girl is this?

And the servant who was in authority over the cutters said, It is a Moabite girl who came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab;

And at meal-time Boaz said to her, Come here, and take some of the bread, and put your bit into the wine. And she took her seat among the grain-cutters: and he gave her dry grain, and she took it, and there was more than enough for her meal.

And her mother-in-law said to her, Where did you take up the grain today, and where were you working? May a blessing be on him who gave such attention to you. And she gave her mother-in-law an account of where she had been working, and said, The name of the man with whom I was working today is Boaz.

Now when Boaz had taken meat and drink, and his heart was glad, he went to take his rest at the end of the mass of grain; then she came softly and, uncovering his feet, went to rest.

And she took her rest at his feet till the morning: and she got up before it was light enough for one to see another. And he said, Let it not come to anyone's knowledge that the woman came to the grain-floor.

And Boaz went up to the public place of the town, and took his seat there: and the near relation of whom he had been talking came by; and Boaz, crying out to him by name, said, Come and be seated here. And he came and was seated.

Then he said to the near relation, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is offering for a price that bit of land which was our brother Elimelech's:

And it was in my mind to give you the chance of taking it, with the approval of those seated here and of the responsible men of my people. If you are ready to do what it is right for a relation to do, then do it: but if you will not do it, say so to me now; for there is no one who has the right to do it but you, and after you myself. And he said, I will do it.

Now, in earlier times this was the way in Israel when property was taken over by a near relation, or when there was a change of owner. To make the exchange certain one man took off his shoe and gave it to the other; and this was a witness in Israel.

Then Boaz said to the responsible men and to all the people, You are witnesses today that I have taken at a price from Naomi all the property which was Elimelech's, and everything which was Chilion's and Mahlon's.

And, further, I have taken Ruth, the Moabitess, who was the wife of Mahlon, to be my wife, to keep the name of the dead man living in his heritage, so that his name may not be cut off from among his countrymen, and from the memory of his town: you are witnesses this day.

Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim, a Zuphite of the hill-country of Ephraim, named Elkanah; he was the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite: