When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he raised up a deliverer for them. His name was Ehud son of Gera the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. The Israelites sent him to King Eglon of Moab with their tribute payment.

Ehud made himself a sword -- it had two edges and was eighteen inches long. He strapped it under his coat on his right thigh.

After Ehud brought the tribute payment, he dismissed the people who had carried it.

When Ehud approached him, he was sitting in his well-ventilated upper room all by himself. Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you." When Eglon rose up from his seat,

Ehud reached with his left hand, pulled the sword from his right thigh, and drove it into Eglon's belly.

The handle went in after the blade, and the fat closed around the blade, for Ehud did not pull the sword out of his belly.

As Ehud went out into the vestibule, he closed the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

When Ehud had left, Eglon's servants came and saw the locked doors of the upper room. They said, "He must be relieving himself in the well-ventilated inner room."

Now Ehud had escaped while they were delaying. When he passed the carved images, he escaped to Seirah.

When he reached Seirah, he blew a trumpet in the Ephraimite hill country. The Israelites went down with him from the hill country, with Ehud in the lead.

After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath; he killed six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad and, like Ehud, delivered Israel.

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord's sight after Ehud's death.