The Lord was with Judah and enabled them to take possession of the hill country, but they could not drive out the people who were living in the valley because those people had iron chariots.

At the same time the Benjaminites did not drive out the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem. The Jebusites have lived among the Benjaminites in Jerusalem to this day.

Naphtali did not drive out the residents of Beth-shemesh or the residents of Beth-anath. They lived among the Canaanites who were living in the land, but the residents of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath served as their forced labor.

The Amorites forced the Danites into the hill country and did not allow them to go down into the valley.

You are not to make a covenant with the people who are living in this land, and you are to tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed Me. What is this you have done?

Therefore, I now say: I will not drive out these people before you. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a trap for you.”

That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works He had done for Israel.

but they did not listen to their judges. Instead, they prostituted themselves with other gods, bowing down to them. They quickly turned from the way of their fathers, who had walked in obedience to the Lord’s commands. They did not do as their fathers did.

Whenever the judge died, the Israelites would act even more corruptly than their fathers, going after other gods to worship and bow down to them. They did not turn from their evil practices or their obstinate ways.

The Lord left these nations and did not drive them out immediately. He did not hand them over to Joshua.

This was to teach the future generations of the Israelites how to fight in battle, especially those who had not fought before.

Even the handle went in after the blade, and Eglon’s fat closed in over it, so that Ehud did not withdraw the sword from his belly. And Eglon’s insides came out.

The servants waited until they became worried and saw that he had still not opened the doors of the upstairs room. So they took the key and opened the doors—and there was their lord lying dead on the floor!

He told them, “Follow me, because the Lord has handed over your enemies, the Moabites, to you.” So they followed him, captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Moab, and did not allow anyone to cross over.

At that time they struck down about 10,000 Moabites, all strong and able-bodied men. Not one of them escaped.

Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go. But if you will not go with me, I will not go.”

Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth of the Nations, and the whole army of Sisera fell by the sword; not a single man was left.

Israel chose new gods,
then war was in the gates.
Not a shield or spear was seen
among 40,000 in Israel.

“Curse Meroz,” says the Angel of the Lord,
“Bitterly curse her inhabitants,
for they did not come to help the Lord,
to help the Lord against the mighty warriors.”

“Are they not finding and dividing the spoil—
a girl or two for each warrior,
the spoil of colored garments for Sisera,
the spoil of an embroidered garment or two for my neck?”

I said to you: I am Yahweh your God. Do not fear the gods of the Amorites whose land you live in. But you did not obey Me.’”

The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the power of Midian. Am I not sending you?”

Please do not leave this place until I return to You. Let me bring my gift and set it before You.”

And He said, “I will stay until you return.”

But the Lord said to him, “Peace to you. Don’t be afraid, for you will not die.”

On that very night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s young bull and a second bull seven years old. Then tear down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.

So Gideon took 10 of his male servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city to do it in the daytime, he did it at night.

That night God did as Gideon requested: only the fleece was dry, and dew was all over the ground.

That night the Lord said to him, “Get up and go into the camp, for I have given it into your hand.

The men of Ephraim said to him, “Why have you done this to us, not calling us when you went to fight against the Midianites?” And they argued with him violently.

So he said to them, “What have I done now compared to you? Is not the gleaning of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?

So he said, “They were my brothers, the sons of my mother! As the Lord lives, if you had let them live, I would not kill you.”

Then he said to Jether, his firstborn, “Get up and kill them.” The youth did not draw his sword, for he was afraid because he was still a youth.

But Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.”

The Israelites did not remember the Lord their God who had delivered them from the power of the enemies around them.

They did not show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) for all the good he had done for Israel.

The bramble said to the trees,
“If you really are anointing me
as king over you,
come and find refuge in my shade.
But if not,
may fire come out from the bramble
and consume the cedars of Lebanon.”

But if not, may fire come from Abimelech and consume the lords of Shechem and Beth-millo, and may fire come from the lords of Shechem and Beth-millo and consume Abimelech.”

So Abimelech and all the people with him got up at night and waited in ambush for Shechem in four units.

Then the Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They worshiped the Baals and the Ashtoreths, the gods of Aram, Sidon, and Moab, and the gods of the Ammonites and the Philistines. They abandoned Yahweh and did not worship Him.

Sidonians, Amalekites, and Maonites oppressed you, and you cried out to Me, did I not deliver you from their power?

But you have abandoned Me and worshiped other gods. Therefore, I will not deliver you again.

to tell him, “This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites.

Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Please let us travel through your land,’ but the king of Edom would not listen. They also sent messengers to the king of Moab, but he refused. So Israel stayed in Kadesh.

“Then they traveled through the wilderness and around the lands of Edom and Moab. They came to the east side of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon but did not enter into the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab.

but Sihon would not trust Israel to pass through his territory. Instead, Sihon gathered all his people, camped at Jahaz, and fought with Israel.

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.”

But the king of the Ammonites would not listen to Jephthah’s message that he sent him.

When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “No! Not my daughter! You have devastated me! You have brought great misery on me. I have given my word to the Lord and cannot take it back.”

they told him, “Please say Shibboleth.” If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce it correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time 42,000 from Ephraim died.

Now please be careful not to drink wine or beer, or to eat anything unclean;

He said to me, ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son. Therefore, do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth until the day of his death.’”

God listened to Manoah, and the Angel of God came again to the woman. She was sitting in the field, and her husband Manoah was not with her.

She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine or drink wine or beer. And she must not eat anything unclean. Your wife must do everything I have commanded her.”

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.

The Angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the Angel of the Lord.

But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had intended to kill us, He wouldn’t have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us, and He would not have shown us all these things or spoken to us now like this.”

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.

the Spirit of the Lord took control of him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

He scooped some honey into his hands and ate it as he went along. When he returned to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had scooped the honey from the lion’s carcass.

Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and visited his wife. “I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.

“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?”

When the Gazites heard that Samson was there, they surrounded the place and waited in ambush for him all that night at the city gate. While they were waiting quietly, they said, “Let us wait until dawn; then we will kill him.”

Samson told her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become weak and be like any other man.”

The Philistine leaders brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him up with them.

“How can you say, ‘I love you,’” she told him, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and not told me what makes your strength so great!”

Then she cried, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When he awoke from his sleep, he said, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

So the Danites sent out five brave men from all their clans, from Zorah and Eshtaol, to scout out the land and explore it. They told them, “Go and explore the land.”

They came to the hill country of Ephraim as far as the home of Micah and spent the night there.

The man got up to go, but his father-in-law persuaded him, so he stayed and spent the night there again.

The man got up to go with his concubine and his servant, when his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him, “Look, night is coming. Please spend the night. See, the day is almost over. Spend the night here, enjoy yourself, then you can get up early tomorrow for your journey and go home.”

But the man was unwilling to spend the night. He got up, departed, and arrived opposite Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). The man had his two saddled donkeys and his concubine with him.

When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Please, why not let us stop at this Jebusite city and spend the night here?”

But his master replied to him, “We will not stop at a foreign city where there are no Israelites. Let’s move on to Gibeah.”

“Come on,” he said, “let’s try to reach one of these places and spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah.”

They stopped to go in and spend the night in Gibeah. The Levite went in and sat down in the city square, but no one took them into their home to spend the night.

“Peace to you,” said the old man. “I’ll take care of everything you need. Only don’t spend the night in the square.”

But the men would not listen to him, so the man seized his concubine and took her outside to them. They raped her and abused her all night until morning. At daybreak they let her go.

The Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, answered: “I went to Gibeah in Benjamin with my concubine to spend the night.

Citizens of Gibeah ganged up on me and surrounded the house at night. They intended to kill me, but they raped my concubine, and she died.

Hand over the perverted men in Gibeah so we can put them to death and eradicate evil from Israel.” But the Benjaminites would not obey their fellow Israelites.

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 10,000 choice men from all Israel made a frontal assault against Gibeah, and the battle was fierce, but the Benjaminites did not know that disaster was about to strike them.

The Israelites asked, “Who of all the tribes of Israel didn’t come to the Lord with the assembly?” For a great oath had been taken that anyone who had not come to the Lord at Mizpah would certainly be put to death.

What should we do about wives for the survivors? We’ve sworn to the Lord not to give them any of our daughters as wives.”

They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young women, who had not had sexual relations with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.

Benjamin returned at that time, and Israel gave them the women they had kept alive from Jabesh-gilead. But there were not enough for them.

They said, “There must be heirs for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out.

When their fathers or brothers come to us and protest, we will tell them, ‘Show favor to them, since we did not get enough wives for each of them in the battle. You didn’t actually give the women to them, so you are not guilty of breaking your oath.’”