He quickly called to the young man who carried his weapons, "Draw your sword and kill me, so they will not say, 'A woman killed him.'" So the young man stabbed him and he died.

In this way, God turned back on Abimelech the evil that he had done against his father, by killing his 70 brothers.

Jair the Gileadite rose up after him; he led Israel for twenty-two years.

And to him will be thirty sons riding upon thirty young asses, and thirty cities to them; and they will call them the villages of Jair even to this day, which are in the land of Gilead.

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord's sight. They worshiped the Baals and the Ashtars, as well as the gods of Syria, Sidon, Moab, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. They abandoned the Lord and did not worship him.

Then the Israelis cried out to the LORD and told him, "We have sinned against you because we have abandoned our God to serve the Baals."

And the people of Israel said to one another, Who will be the first to make an attack on the children of Ammon? We will make him head over all Gilead.

Gilead's wife also gave him sons. When his wife's sons grew up, they made Jephthah leave and said to him, "You are not going to inherit any of our father's wealth, because you are another woman's son."

So Jephthah left his half-brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Lawless men joined Jephthah's gang and traveled with him.

They said to him, “Come, be our commander, and let’s fight against the Ammonites.”

So Jephthah went with the leaders of Gilead. The people made him their leader and commander. Jephthah repeated the terms of the agreement before the Lord in Mizpah.

Afterwards, Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites to ask him, "What's your dispute between us that prompted you to come and attack my land?"

and said to him, "This is what Jephthah says, 'Israel did not steal the land of Moab and the land of the Ammonites.

Israel sent a delegation to the king of Edom and asked him, "Please let us pass through your territory."

Israel sent messengers to King Sihon, the Amorite king who ruled in Heshbon, and said to him, "Please allow us to pass through your land to our land."

But the king of the Ammonites disregarded the message of Jephthah, which he sent to him.

then whoever is the first to come through the doors of my house to meet me when I return safely from fighting the Ammonites -- he will belong to the Lord and I will offer him up as a burnt sacrifice."

Jephthah approached the Ammonites to fight with them, and the Lord handed them over to him.

When Jephthah came home to Mizpah, there was his daughter hurrying out to meet him, dancing to the rhythm of tambourines. She was his only child; except for her he had no son or daughter.

She said to him, "My father, since you made an oath to the Lord, do to me as you promised. After all, the Lord vindicated you before your enemies, the Ammonites."

The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan River opposite Ephraim. Whenever an Ephraimite fugitive said, "Let me cross over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said, "No,"

then they said to him, "Say 'Shibboleth!'" If he said, "Sibboleth" (and could not pronounce the word correctly), they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.

After him Ibzan of Bethlehem led Israel.

And there will be to him thirty sons and thirty daughters he sent without, and thirty daughters he brought in to his sons from without: and he will judge Israel seven years.

After him Elon the Zebulunite led Israel for ten years.

After him Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite led Israel.

And there will be to him forty sons and thirty sons' sons riding upon seventy young asses: and he will judge Israel eight years.

The woman went and said to her husband, "A man sent from God came to me! He looked like God's angelic messenger -- he was very awesome. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name.

Then Manoah made entreaty unto Yahweh, and said: Pardon, O My Lord! the man of God whom thou didst send, I pray thee, let him come again unto us, that he may teach us what we are to do, unto the boy that is to be born.

So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “Behold, the Man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.”

So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met the man, he said to him, "Are you the man who spoke to my wife?" He said, "Yes."

And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?

“Please stay here,” Manoah told Him, “and we will prepare a young goat for You.”

The Angel of the Lord said to him, “If I stay, I won’t eat your food. But if you want to prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord.” For Manoah did not know He was the Angel of the Lord.

Then Manoah said to Him, “What is Your name, so that we may honor You when Your words come true?”

The Lord's messenger said to him, "You should not ask me my name, because you cannot comprehend it."

So Mano'ah took the kid with the cereal offering, and offered it upon the rock to the LORD, to him who works wonders.

But his wife said to him, "If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us. He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now."

Manoah's wife gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The child grew and the Lord empowered him.

The Lord's spirit began to control him in Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

But his father and mother said to him, "Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines." But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, because she is the right one for me."

Samson went down to Timnah. When he approached the vineyards of Timnah, he saw a roaring young lion attacking him.

The Lord's spirit empowered him and he tore the lion in two with his bare hands as easily as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

Then Samson's father accompanied him to Timnah for the marriage. Samson hosted a party there, for this was customary for bridegrooms to do.

When the Philistines saw he had no attendants, they gave him thirty groomsmen who kept him company.

But if you cannot solve it, you will give me thirty linen robes and thirty sets of clothes." They said to him, "Let us hear your riddle."

And he will say to them, Out of him eating came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they were not able to announce the enigma in three days.

So Samson’s wife wept before him and said, “You only hate me, you do not love me; you have asked my countrymen a riddle, and have not told [the answer] to me.” And he said to her, “Listen, I have not told my father or my mother [either], so [why] should I tell you?”

She cried on his shoulder until the party was almost over. Finally, on the seventh day, he told her because she had nagged him so much. Then she told the young men the solution to the riddle.

On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" He said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!"

The Lord's spirit empowered him. He went down to Ashkelon and murdered thirty men. He took their clothes and gave them to the men who had solved the riddle. He was furious as he went back home.

and his wife was given to one of the men who had accompanied him.

Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. He said to her father, "I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!" But her father would not let him enter.

The men of Judah said, "Why are you attacking us?" The Philistines said, "We have come up to take Samson prisoner so we can do to him what he has done to us."

They said to him, "We have come down to take you prisoner so we can hand you over to the Philistines." Samson said to them, "Promise me you will not kill me."

They said to him, "We promise! We will only take you prisoner and hand you over to them. We promise not to kill you." They tied him up with two brand new ropes and led him up from the cliff.

When he arrived in Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they approached him. But the Lord's spirit empowered him. The ropes around his arms were like flax dissolving in fire, and they melted away from his hands.

Aferward, he became thirsty, called out to the LORD, and told him, "So, you provided this great deliverance at the hands of your servant, but now I'm to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"

So God split open the hollow place that was at Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his spirit (strength) returned and he was revived. Therefore he named it En-hakkore (spring which is calling), which is at Lehi to this day.

The Gazites were told, "Samson has come here!" So they surrounded the town and hid all night at the city gate, waiting for him to leave. They relaxed all night, thinking, "He will not leave until morning comes; then we will kill him!"

The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her, "Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces."

So the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried and they tied him up with them.

They hid in the bedroom and then she said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. The secret of his strength was not discovered.

So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" (The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) But he tore the ropes from his arms as if they were a piece of thread.

So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He woke up and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.

She said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you will not share your secret with me? Three times you have deceived me and have not told me what makes you so strong."

She nagged him every day and pressured him until he was sick to death of it.

She made him go to sleep on her lap and then called a man in to shave off the seven braids of his hair. She made him vulnerable and his strength left him.

She said, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He woke up and thought, "I will do as I did before and shake myself free." But he did not realize that the Lord had left him.

The Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him in bronze chains. He became a grinder in the prison.

When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying, "Our god has handed our enemy over to us, the one who ruined our land and killed so many of us!"

When they really started celebrating, they said, "Call for Samson so he can entertain us!" So they summoned Samson from the prison and he entertained them. They made him stand between two pillars.

Then Samson said to the boy who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the [roof of the] house rests, so that I may lean against them.”

And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines." And he pushed with [all his] strength, and the house fell on the rulers and all of the people who [were] with him. And the dead whom he killed in his death were more than those he killed in his life.

His brothers and all his family went down and brought him back. They buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel for twenty years.

And the man Micah to him a house of gods; and he will make an ephod and a teraphim, and he will fill the hand of one of his sons, and he will be to him for priest

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

Micah said to him, "Where do you come from?" He replied, "I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. I am looking for a new place to live."

Micah said to him, "Stay with me. Become my adviser and priest. I will give you ten pieces of silver per year, plus clothes and food."

And the Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was unto him as one of his sons.

And Micah will fill the hand of the Levite; and the youth will be to him for a priest, and he will be in the house of Micah.

As they approached Micah's house, they recognized the accent of the young Levite. So they stopped there and said to him, "Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?"

He told them what Micah had done for him, saying, "He hired me and I became his priest."

They said to him, "Seek a divine oracle for us, so we can know if we will be successful on our mission."

They stopped there, went inside the young Levite's house (which belonged to Micah), and asked him how he was doing.

They said to him, "Shut up! Put your hand over your mouth and come with us! You can be our adviser and priest. Wouldn't it be better to be a priest for a whole Israelite tribe than for just one man's family?"

The Danites said to him, "Don't say another word to us, or some very angry men will attack you, and you and your family will die."

And the children of Dan went their way: and when Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back unto his house.

After they had taken the gods Micah had made and the priest that belonged to him, they went to Laish, to a quiet and unsuspecting people. They killed them with their swords and burned down the city.

And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of mount Ephraim, who took to him a concubine out of Bethlehemjudah.

However, she got angry at him and went home to her father's house in Bethlehem in Judah. When she had been there four months,

her husband came after her, hoping he could convince her to return. He brought with him his servant and a pair of donkeys. When she brought him into her father's house and the girl's father saw him, he greeted him warmly.

His father-in-law, the girl's father, persuaded him to stay with him for three days, and they ate and drank together, and spent the night there.

On the fourth day, they got up early that morning, and the descendant of Levi got ready to leave. Then the young woman's father-in-law told him, "Fortify yourself by eating some food before you go."

When the man got ready to leave, his father-in-law convinced him to stay another night.

He got up early in the morning of the fifth day to leave, but the girl’s father said to him, “Please keep up your strength.” So they waited until late afternoon and the two of them ate.

When the man got ready to leave with his concubine and his servant, his father-in-law, the girl's father, said to him, "Look! The day is almost over! Stay another night! Since the day is over, stay another night here and have a good time. You can get up early tomorrow and start your trip home."

But the man did not want to stay another night. He left and traveled as far as Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). He had with him a pair of saddled donkeys and his concubine.

But his master said to him, "We should not stop at a foreign city where non-Israelites live. We will travel on to Gibeah."

And they turned aside thither, to go in and to lodge in Gibeah: and when he went in, he sat him down in a street of the city: for there was no man that took them into his house to lodging.