Then the army of Judah attacked Jerusalem, captured it, executed its inhabitants, and set fire to the city.

Therefore I'm now saying, "I won't expel them before you. Instead, they'll remain at your side, and their gods will ensnare you.'"

Because the angel of the LORD said these things to all of the Israelis, the people wept out loud,

In his burning anger against Israel, the LORD said, "Because the people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their ancestors to keep, and because they haven't obeyed me,

Ehud approached him while he was sitting by himself in the cool roof chamber of his palace. He said, "I have a message from God for you!" So when Eglon got up from his seat,

After he left, Eglon's attendants came to look, but the doors to the cool chamber were locked! So they said, "He must be relieving himself in the inner part of the cool chamber."

She regularly took her seat under the Palm Tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountainous region of Ephraim, where the Israelis would approach her for decisions.

Why did you sit down among the sheepfolds? To hear the bleating of the flocks? Among the divisions of the army of Reuben there was great searching of heart.

The tribe of Gilead remained on the other side of the Jordan River. As for the tribe of Dan, why did they stay on board their ships? The tribe of Asher sat by the seashore and remained near its harbors.

They set up their military encampments to fight them, destroyed the harvest of the land as far as Gaza, and left nothing in Israel, whether harvested grain, sheep, oxen, or donkeys.

I told you, "I am the LORD your God. You are not to fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you'll be living."' But you haven't obeyed what I said."

After this, the angel of the LORD arrived and sat down in the shade of the oak tree in Ophrah that belonged to Joash, a descendant of Abiezer, while his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine press in order to safeguard it from the Midianites.

But Gideon replied, "Right" Sir, if the LORD is with us, then why has all of this happened to us? And where are all of his miraculous works that our ancestors recounted to us when they said, "The LORD brought us up from Egypt, didn't he?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us over to Midian!"

And please don't leave here until I've come back to you, brought my offering, and set it down in front of you." The LORD replied, "I'll stay until you return."

Then all the Midianites, Amalekites, and certain groups from the east gathered together, crossed the Jordan River, and set up camp in the Jezreel Valley.

Then Gideon told God, "If you intend to deliver Israel by my efforts as you've said,

then take a look at this wool fleece that I'm placing on the threshing floor. If dew appears only on the fleece and it's dry on the ground all around it then I'll know that you'll deliver Israel by my efforts like you've said."

God gave Oreb and Zeeb, the leaders of Midian, into your control. What was I able to do compared to you?" When he said this, their anger calmed down.

Then Gideon approached the men of Succoth and announced, "Here are Zebah and Zalmunna. You criticized me about them when you said, "Do you have Zebah and Zalmunna in custody already, so that we should give food to your weary army?'"

The Israelis did not remember the LORD their God, who continually delivered them from the domination of their enemies who surrounded them on every side.

So his mother's relatives spoke all of this on his behalf in the presence of all the "lords" of Shechem. Since they were inclined to follow Abimelech, they said, "He's our relative!"

All the men from Shechem and Beth-millo gathered together and set up Abimelech as king near the pillar erected in Shechem.

But the fig tree asked them, "Should I leave my sweet, good fruit and go take dominion over trees?'

When Zebul, the ruler of the city, heard what Ebed's son Gaal had said, he flew into a rage.

So Zebul replied, "Right... So where's your boasting now? You said, "Who is Abimelech? Should we serve him?' Isn't this the army that you insulted? So go out right now and fight them!"

Then his entire army also cut down a branch for each soldier, followed Abimelech to the inner chamber, and set fire to it while they were inside. As a result, all the men of the tower of Shechem died, including about a thousand men and women.

Later on, Abimelech went to Thebez, set up a siege encampment there, and captured it.

The elders of Gilead responded to Jephthah, "May the Lord serve as a witness that we're making this agreement between ourselves to do as we've said."

"But the king of Edom wouldn't listen. So they also sent word to the king of Moab, but he wouldn't consent, either. So Israel stayed at Kadesh. Then they went through the desert, circumventing the territory belonging to Edom and Moab. They encamped on the other side of the Arnon River, but never entered the territory of Moab because the Arnon River is the border of Moab.

I haven't sinned against you, but you are acting wrongly against me by declaring war on me. May the LORD, the Judge, sit in judgment today between the Israelis and the Ammonites.'"

So he said, "Go!" He sent her away for two months. She left with her friends and cried there on the mountains because she would never marry.

The descendants of Gilead seized control of the Jordan River's fords along the border of Ephraim's territory. Later on, when any fugitive from Ephraim asked them, "Let me cross over," the men from Gilead would ask him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said "No,"

they would order him, "Pronounce the word "Shibboleth' right now." If he said "Sibboleth," not being able to pronounce it correctly, they would seize him and slaughter him there at the fords of the Jordan River. During those days 42,000 descendants of Ephraim died that way.

Then the woman went to tell her husband. She said, "A man of God appeared to me. He looked like what an angel of God would look like very frightening. I didn't ask him where he had come from and he didn't tell me his name.

Manoah asked, "Now, when what you've said occurs, what is to be the young man's way of life and work?"

The angel of the LORD answered Manoah, "If you detain me, I won't be eating your food, but if you prepare a burnt offering, you'll be making a sacrifice to the LORD." The angel of the LORD said this because Manoah didn't know that he was the angel of the LORD.

Manoah asked the angel of the LORD, "What's your name, because when what you've said happens, we'll glorify you?"

So he told them: From the eater came something edible; from the strong something sweet. For three days they couldn't solve the riddle.

The next day, they told Samson's wife, "Coax your husband to explain the riddle or we'll set fire to your father's house with you in it! You've invited us here to make us paupers, haven't you?"

Her father said, "Because I honestly thought that you hated her deeply, I gave her in marriage to your best man. Isn't her younger sister better than she? Please then, let her be yours instead."

Then he ignited the torches, set the foxes loose into the Philistines' unharvested grain, and burned up both the harvested shocks and the standing grain, along with their vineyards and olive groves.

Then the Philistines demanded, "Who did this?" Someone said, "Samson, son-in-law of the Timnite, because his father-in-law took Samson's wife and gave her to the best man at Samson's wedding." In retaliation, the Philistines came up and burned her and her father to death.

So they said, "No, we won't. But we're going to tie you up securely and transfer you to their custody. But we won't kill you." Then they bound him with two ropes and brought him up from the caves.

Then Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" He strained with all his strength until the building collapsed on the officials and every person in it. As a result, the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed during his lifetime.

Her son gave back the 1,100 silver coins to his mother, and she said, "I'm totally giving this silver from my hand to the LORD so my son can make a carved image and a cast image. So I'm returning it to you."

When he had returned the silver to his mother, his mother took 200 of the silver coins and handed them over to a silversmith. He crafted them into a carved image and into a cast image, and they were set up in Micah's house.

Micah asked him, "Where did you come from?" He replied, "I'm a descendant of Levi from Bethlehem in Judah, and I'm going to stay temporarily wherever I can find a place."

Micah set up the descendant of Levi in ministry, and the young man became his priest while he lived in Micah's house.

They replied, "Let's get going and attack them. We've scouted out the land and look! it's a very good one. Why should we sit still? We can't wait to go back, invade, and take over the land.

So 600 descendants of Dan from Zorah and Eshtaol set out for battle, armed with military weapons.

But the descendants of Dan took what Micah had made, along with the priest who had worked for him, and went to Laish, to a quiet and carefree people, and killed them with swords. Then they set fire to the city.

The descendants of Dan set up the carved image, and Gershom's son Jonathan, a descendant of Manasseh, served along with his descendants as priests to the tribe of Dan until the land was taken captive.

Micah's carved image, that he himself had crafted, was in place during the entire time that God's tent was set up at Shiloh.

The young woman's father (that is, his father-in-law) made him stay there for three days while they ate and drank during his visit there.

So both of them sat down for a bit, ate and drank together, and the young woman's father invited the man, "Please, enjoy yourself and spend another night."

So they continued on their way, and the sun set on them near Gibeah, which is part of Benjamin's territorial allotment.

After they entered the city, they had to sit down in the public square because no one would take them into their home for the night. Just then, an old man was coming out of the fields that evening from work. The man was from the mountainous region of Ephraim and had been staying in Gibeah, even though the men of that place were descendants of Benjamin.

All the witnesses said, "Nothing has happened or has been seen like this from the day the Israelis came here from the land of Egypt to this day! Think about it, get some advice about it, and then speak up about it!"

The Israelis mounted up, traveled to Bethel, and asked God what to do. They said, "Who is to lead us in our opening attack against the descendants of Benjamin?" The LORD replied, "Judah is to open the attack."

So Israel set soldiers in ambush around Gibeah.

Then the descendants of Benjamin realized that they had been defeated. The army of Israel pretended to retreat from the army of Benjamin, knowing that they had set some soldiers in ambush near Gibeah.

Meanwhile, the army of Israel went back to fight the surviving descendants of Benjamin. They attacked the entire city with swords, including its cattle and everyone they could find. Then they set fire to all of the cities that they could find.

So the people went to Bethel, sat before God until dusk, where they cried out loud and wept bitterly.

So they concluded, "Look, there's a festival to the LORD every year in Shiloh on the north side of Bethel, south of Lebonah and on the east side of the highway that runs from Bethel to Shechem""