It happened after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel asked of the LORD, saying, "Who should go up for us first against the Canaanites, to fight against them?"

Judah said to Simeon his brother, "Come up with me into my lot, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with you into your lot." So Simeon went with him.

Adoni-Bezek said, "Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, scavenged under my table: as I have done, so God has requited me." They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

Afterward the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who lived in the hill country, and in the Negev, and in the lowland.

Caleb said, "He who strikes Kiriath Sepher, and takes it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife."

It happened, when she came to him, that she got him to ask her father for a field: and she got off from her donkey; and Caleb said to her, "What would you like?"

She said to him, "Give me a blessing; since you have given me the land in the Negev, give me also springs of water." Then Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.

They gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had spoken: and he drove out there the three sons of Anak.

The children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

The house of Joseph sent to spy out Bethel. (Now the name of the city before was Luz.)

The watchers saw a man come forth out of the city, and they said to him, "Please show us the entrance into the city, and we will deal kindly with you."

The man went into the land of the Hittites, and built a city, and called its name Luz, which is its name to this day.

It happened, when Israel had grown strong, that they put the Canaanites to forced labor, and did not utterly drive them out.

Ephraim didn't drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer; but the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.

Zebulun didn't drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites lived among them, and became subject to forced labor.

Naphtali didn't drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh, nor the inhabitants of Beth Anath; but he lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land: nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and of Beth Anath became subject to forced labor.

The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the hill country; for they would not allow them to come down to the valley;

but the Amorites would dwell in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim: yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became subject to forced labor.

The angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim. He said, "I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore to your fathers; and I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you:

and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.' But you have not listened to my voice: why have you done this?

Therefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you."

It happened, when the angel of the LORD spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept.

They called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there to the LORD.

Now when Joshua had sent the people away, the children of Israel went every man to his inheritance to possess the land.

Also all that generation were gathered to their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, who didn't know the LORD, nor yet the work which he had worked for Israel.

and they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them: and they provoked the LORD to anger.

Wherever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had spoken, and as the LORD had sworn to them: and they were in great distress.

Yet they did not listen to their judges; for they played the prostitute after other gods, and bowed themselves down to them: they turned aside quickly out of the way in which their fathers walked, obeying the commandments of the LORD; but they did not do so.

But it happened, when the judge was dead, that they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down to them; they did not cease from their doings, nor from their stubborn way.

The anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel; and he said, "Because this nation have transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not listened to my voice;

that by them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk therein, as their fathers kept it, or not."

Now these are the nations which the LORD left, to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan;

only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing of it:

namely, the five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath.

They were left, to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would listen to the commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their fathers by Moses.

and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods.

When the children of Israel cried to the LORD, the LORD raised up a savior to the children of Israel, who saved them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother.

The Spirit of the LORD came on him, and he judged Israel; and he went out to war, and the LORD delivered Cushan Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand: and his hand prevailed against Cushan Rishathaim.

He gathered to him the children of Ammon and Amalek; and he went and struck Israel, and they possessed the city of palm trees.

But when the children of Israel cried to the LORD, the LORD raised them up a savior, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a man left-handed. The children of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab.

Ehud made him a sword which had two edges, a cubit in length; and he girded it under his clothing on his right thigh.

He offered the tribute to Eglon king of Moab: now Eglon was a very fat man.

Ehud came to him; and he was sitting by himself alone in the cool upper room. Ehud said, "I have a message from God to you." He arose out of his seat.

and the handle also went in after the blade; and the fat closed on the blade, for he didn't draw the sword out of his body; and it came out behind.

Ehud escaped while they waited, and passed beyond the quarries, and escaped to Seirah.

He said to them, "Follow after me; for the LORD has delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hand." They went down after him, and took the fords of the Jordan against the Moabites, and did not allow a man to pass over.

So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest eighty years.

The children of Israel cried to the LORD: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.

She lived under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.

She sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh Naphtali, and said to him, "Hasn't the LORD, the God of Israel, commanded, 'Go and draw to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?

I will draw to you, to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into your hand.'"

Barak said to her, "If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go."

She said, "I will surely go with you: nevertheless, the journey that you take shall not be for your honor; for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali together to Kedesh; and there went up ten thousand men at his feet: and Deborah went up with him.

They told Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam was gone up to Mount Tabor.

Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles, to the river Kishon.

Deborah said to Barak, "Go; for this is the day in which the LORD has delivered Sisera into your hand. Hasn't the LORD gone out before you?" So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.

But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the army, to Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; there was not a man left.

However Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, "Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; do not be afraid." He came in to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug.

He said to her, "Please give me a little water to drink; for I am thirsty." She opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.

He said to her, "Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man comes and inquires of you, and says, 'Is there any man here?' that you shall say, 'No.'"

Then Jael Heber's wife took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him, and struck the pin into his temples, and it pierced through into the ground; for he was in a deep sleep; so he swooned and died.

Behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said to him, "Come, and I will show you the man whom you seek." He came to her; and behold, Sisera lay dead, and the tent peg was in his temples.

So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel.

Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying,

"Hear, you kings. Give ear, you princes. I, even I, will sing to the LORD. I will sing praise to the LORD, the God of Israel.

Far from the noise of archers, in the places of drawing water, there they will rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD, the righteous acts of his rule in Israel. "Then the people of the LORD went down to the gates.

Why did you sit among the sheepfolds, to hear the whistling for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben There were great searchings of heart.

Zebulun was a people that risked their lives even to death; Naphtali also, on the high places of the field.

Curse Meroz, said the angel of the LORD. Curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they did not come to help the LORD, to help the LORD against the mighty.

She put her hand to the tent peg, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer. She struck Sisera, she pierced his head; she shattered and struck through his temple.

'Have they not found, have they not divided the spoil? A lady, two ladies to every man; to Sisera a spoil of dyed garments, A spoil of dyed garments embroidered, Of dyed garments embroidered on both sides, for the neck of the plunderer?'

For they came up with their livestock and their tents; they would come in like locusts in number; both they and their camels were without number, and they came into the land to ravage it.

Israel was brought very low because of Midian; and the children of Israel cried to the LORD.

It happened, when the children of Israel cried to the LORD because of Midian,

that the LORD sent a prophet to the children of Israel, and he said to them, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage;

and I said to you, "I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell." But you have not listened to my voice.'"

The angel of the LORD came, and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained to Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.

The angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."

Gideon said to him, "Oh, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, 'Didn't the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian."

The LORD looked at him, and said, "Go in this your might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Haven't I sent you?"

He said to him, "O Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."

The LORD said to him, "Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man."

He said to him, "If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me.

Please do not go away, until I come to you, and bring out my present, and lay it before you." He said, "I will wait until you come back."

Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of meal: the meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out to him under the oak, and presented it.

The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And he did so.

Gideon saw that he was the angel of the LORD; and Gideon said, "Alas, Lord GOD. Because I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face."

The LORD said to him, "Peace be to you. Do not be afraid. You shall not die."

Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it "The LORD is Peace." To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

It happened the same night, that the LORD said to him, "Take your father's bull, even the second bull seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it;

and build an altar to the LORD your God on the top of this stronghold, in the orderly manner, and take the second bull, and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down."

Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the LORD had spoken to him: and it came about, because he feared his father's household and the men of the city, so that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night.

They said one to another, "Who has done this thing?" When they inquired and asked, they said, "Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing."

Then the men of the city said to Joash, "Bring out your son, that he may die, because he has broken down the altar of Baal, and because he has cut down the Asherah that was by it."

Joash said to all who stood against him, "Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? He who will contend for him, let him be put to death while it is yet morning: if he is a god, let him contend for himself, because someone has broken down his altar."

Therefore on that day he named him Jerubbaal, saying, "Let Baal contend against him, because he has broken down his altar."

He sent messengers throughout all Manasseh; and they also were gathered together after him: and he sent messengers to Asher, and to Zebulun, and to Naphtali; and they came up to meet them.

Gideon said to God, "If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken,