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.

After him came Jair the Gileadite, who judged Israel 22 years.

He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys and possessed thirty cities. To this day these towns are called Havvoth Jair -- they are in the land of Gilead.

They shattered and crushed the Israelites that year, and for 18 years they did the same to all the Israelites who were on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites in Gilead.

Go and make outcry unto the gods whom ye have chosen, - they, must save you, in the time of your tribulation.

The leaders of Gilead said to one another, "Who is willing to lead the charge against the Ammonites? He will become the leader of all who live in Gilead!"

So Jephthah fled from the face of his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob, - and there gathered about Jephthah unemployed men, who went forth with him.

But Jephthah replied to the elders of Gilead, "Weren't you the ones who hated me and drove me out of my father's house? And you come to me now that you're in trouble?"

The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "That may be true, but now we pledge to you our loyalty. Come with us and fight with the Ammonites. Then you will become the leader of all who live in Gilead."

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."

The Lord God of Israel handed Sihon and his whole army over to Israel and they defeated them. Israel took all the land of the Amorites who lived in that land.

You have the right to take what Chemosh your god gives you, but we will take the land of all whom the Lord our God has driven out before us.

I have not sinned against you, but you have wronged me by fighting against me. Let the Lord who is the Judge decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”

The Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah, who traveled through Gilead and Manasseh, and then through Mizpah of Gilead. He crossed over to the Ammonites from Mizpah of Gilead.

When Jephthah arrived at his home in Mizpah surprise! it was his daughter who came out to meet him, playing tambourines and dancing. She was his one and only child. Except for her, he had no other son or daughter.

When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are among those who trouble me; for I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.”

At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her as he had vowed; and she had no relations with a man. It became a custom in Israel,

And the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan opposite the Ephraimites; and when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,”

Ibzan, who was from Bethlehem, judged Israel after Jephthah

He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters whom he gave in marriage outside the family, and he brought in thirty daughters [-in-law] from outside for his sons. He judged Israel for seven years.

Elon, who was from Zebulun, judged Israel after Ibzan. He judged Israel 10 years,

After Elon, Abdon son of Hillel, who was from Pirathon, judged Israel.

He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys. He led Israel for eight years.

because you [will] conceive and bear a son. No razor {will touch} his head, because the boy will be a {Nazirite of God} {from birth}. And it is he who will begin to deliver Israel from [the] hand of [the] Philistines."

Manoah prayed to the Lord, "Please, Lord, allow the man sent from God to visit us again, so he can teach us how we should raise the child who will be born."

The woman ran at once and told her husband, "Come quickly, the man who visited 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."

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

And Manoah said to his wife, Death will certainly be our fate, for it is a god whom we have seen.

A while later, Samson went down to Timnah and observed a woman in Timnah who was of Philistine origin.

Then his father and mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of your relations or among all my people, that you have to go for your wife to the Philistines, who are without circumcision? But Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she is pleasing to me.

Now his father and mother did not know this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. At that time, the Philistines were ruling over Israel.

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

He said to them, "Out of the one who eats came something to eat; out of the strong one came something sweet." They could not solve the riddle for three days.

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.

But Samson’s wife was given to his companion who had been his friend.

“I was sure you hated her,” her father said, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Why not take her instead?”

The Philistines asked, "Who did this?" They were told, "Samson, the Timnite's son-in-law, because the Timnite took Samson's bride and gave her to his best man." So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father.

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.

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.

After this Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Sorek Valley.

- unto whom came the lords of the Philistines, and said unto her, "Flatter with him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may have power over him, that we may bind him, to bring him under, and we will give every man eleven hundred silverlings."

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!"

Samson said to the young man who held his hand, "Position me so I can touch the pillars that support the temple. Then I can lean on them."

Now the house was full of men and women; all the Philistine lords were there, and on the flat roof were about three thousand men and women who looked on while Samson was entertaining them.

And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” And he stretched out with all his might [collapsing the support pillars], and the house fell on the lords and on all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.

When he gave the silver back to his mother, she took two hundred pieces of silver to a silversmith, who made them into a carved image and a metal image. She then put them in Micah's house.

Now the man Micah had a house of gods (shrine), and he made an ephod and teraphim and dedicated and installed one of his sons, who became his [personal] priest.

There was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah. He was a Levite who had been temporarily residing among the tribe of Judah.

And the children of Dan sent of their family five men from their coasts, men of valour, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land, and to search it; and they said unto them, Go, search the land: who when they came to mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, they lodged there.

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?"

The five men left and came to Laish. They saw that the people who were there were living securely, in the same way as the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting. There was nothing lacking in the land and no oppressive ruler. They were far from the Sidonians, having no alliance with anyone.

The five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish said to their kinsmen, "Do you realize that inside these houses are an ephod, some personal idols, a carved image, and a metal image? Decide now what you want to do."

The six hundred men armed with their weapons of war, who were of the sons of Dan, stood by the entrance of the gate.

The five men who had gone to spy out the land broke in and stole the carved image, the ephod, the personal idols, and the metal image, while the priest was standing at the entrance to the gate with the six hundred fully armed men.

When they had gone some distance from the house of Micah, the men who were [living] in the houses near Micah’s house assembled [as a militia] and overtook the sons of Dan.

They shouted to the Danites, who turned and said to Micah, “What is your reason for assembling [against us]?”

Then they took what Micah had made and the priest who had belonged to him, and came to Laish, to a people quiet and secure, and struck them with the edge of the sword; and they burned the city with fire.

They named it Dan after their ancestor, who was one of Israel's sons. But the city's name used to be Laish.

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, his master said to him, “We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners who are not of the sons of Israel; but we will go on as far as Gibeah.”

They turned that way to go in to spend the night in Gibeah. And he went in and they sat down in the street of the city; for there was no one who would take them into their house to spend the night.

And behold, there came an old man from his work out of the field at evening, who was also from Mount Ephraim. And he lived in Gibeah, but the men of the place were of Benjamin.

The Levite replied, “We are passing through from Bethlehem [in the territory] of Judah to the most remote part of the hill country of Ephraim; I am from there. I went to Bethlehem of Judah, but I am now going [home] to my house, and there is no man [in the city] who will take me into his house [for the night].

We have enough straw and grain for our donkeys, and there is enough food and wine for me, your female servant, and the young man who is with your servants. We lack nothing."

They were having a good time, when suddenly some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, surrounded the house and kept beating on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, "Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him."

The man who owned the house went outside and said to them, "No, my brothers! Don't do this wicked thing! After all, this man is a guest in my house. Don't do such a disgraceful thing!

Everyone who saw the sight said, "Nothing like this has happened or been witnessed during the entire time since the Israelites left the land of Egypt! Take careful note of it! Discuss it and speak!"

The chiefs of all the people of all the tribes of Israel, presented themselves in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand men on foot who drew the sword.

(Now the Benjamites [in whose territory the crime was committed] heard that the [other tribes of the] sons of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.) And the sons of Israel said, “How did this evil thing happen?”

So the Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, replied, “I had come with my concubine to spend the night in Gibeah, [a town] which belongs to [the tribe of] Benjamin.

Now, therefore, deliver up the men - the sons of the Abandoned One - who are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death, and vileness be consumed out of Israel. But the sons of Benjamin would not hearken unto the voice of their brethren, the sons of Israel.

And the Benjamites assembled out of their cities at that time twenty-six thousand men who drew the sword, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah, who assembled seven hundred chosen men.

There were 700 choice men who were left-handed among all these people; all could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.

Then the men of Israel, other than Benjamin, assembled four hundred thousand men who drew the sword; all of these were men of war.

The Israelites went up to Bethel and asked God, "Who should lead the charge against the Benjaminites?" The Lord said, "Judah should lead."

And [the fighting men from the tribe of] Benjamin went out of Gibeah against them the second day and again struck to the ground the sons of Israel, eighteen thousand men, all of whom were swordsmen.

And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and set themselves in array at Ba'al-ta'mar; and the men of Israel who were in ambush rushed out of their place west of Geba.

And the Lord struck down [the tribe of] Benjamin before Israel, so that the sons of Israel destroyed twenty-five thousand one hundred men of Benjamin that day, all of whom were swordsmen.

So the Benjamites realized that they were defeated. Then men of Israel gave ground to the Benjamites, because they relied on the men in ambush whom they had placed against Gibeah.

Meanwhile, the army of Israel had arranged to signal their soldiers who had been hiding in ambush by sending up a cloud of smoke from the city.

Therefore, they turned their backs before the men of Israel [and fled] toward the direction of the wilderness, but the battle followed and overtook them. As the [fighting men of the] sons of Benjamin ran among them, the Israelites of the cities came out and destroyed them.

There were 18,000 men who died from Benjamin; all were warriors.

And turning, they went in flight to the rock of Rimmon in the waste land: and on the highways five thousand of them were cut off by the men of Israel, who, pushing on hard after them to Geba, put to death two thousand more.

So all of Benjamin who fell that day were twenty-five thousand men who drew the sword, all of them brave and able warriors.

But there turned and fled, towards the desert, unto the cliff Rimmon, six hundred men, - who abode in the cliff Rimmon, four months.

The Israelites asked, "Who from all the Israelite tribes has not assembled before the Lord?" They had made a solemn oath that whoever did not assemble before the Lord at Mizpah must certainly be executed.

How can we find wives for those who are left? After all, we took an oath in the Lord's name not to give them our daughters as wives."

So they asked, "Who from all the Israelite tribes did not assemble before the Lord at Mizpah?" Now it just so happened no one from Jabesh Gilead had come to the gathering.

Do this: exterminate every male, as well as every woman who has had sexual relations with a male. But spare the lives of any virgins." So they did as instructed.

They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young girls who were virgins -- they had never had sexual relations with a male. They brought them back to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.

Then the whole congregation sent word to the [surviving] sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them.

So [the survivors of] Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women whom they had kept alive from the women of Jabesh-gilead; but there were not enough [to provide wives] for them.

The leaders of the assembly said, "How can we find wives for those who are left? After all, the Benjaminite women have been wiped out.

And they said, There must be an inheritance for those of Benjamin who have escaped, so that a tribe may not be destroyed out of Israel.

But we cannot give them wives from our daughters.” For the sons of Israel had sworn [an oath], “Cursed is he who gives a wife to [a man from the tribe of] Benjamin.”

And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them.