Sometime after Joshua had died, the Israelis asked the LORD, "Who is to lead us against the Canaanites in our opening attack against them?"

But Adoni-zedek went in flight; and they went after him and overtook him, and had his thumbs and his great toes cut off.

Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to gather up scraps of food under my table; as I have done [to others], so God has repaid me.” So they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

Now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and had taken it, and smitten it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire.

Later on, after she had arrived, she urged Othniel to ask her father for a field. As she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, "What do you want for yourself?"

The descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, had gone up with the men of Judah from the City of Palms to the Wilderness of Judah, which was in the Negev of Arad. They went to live among the people.

The Lord was with the men of Judah. They conquered the hill country, but they could not conquer the people living in the coastal plain, because they had chariots with iron-rimmed wheels.

Caleb received Hebron, just as Moses had promised. He drove out the three Anakites.

The house of Joseph spied out Bethel (now the name of the city was formerly Luz).

And Manasseh had not taken possession of Beth-shean and its daughter-villages, nor Taanach and its daughter-villages, nor struck the inhabitants of Dor and its daughter-villages, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and its daughter-villages, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and its daughter-villages. For the Canaanites were determined to live in that land.

when Israel, however, had waxed strong, they put the Canaanites under tribute, - though they, dispossessed, them not.

Furthermore, the Amorites continued to inhabit Mount Heres in Aijalon and Shaalbim. Eventually, however, after the tribe of Joseph had become strong, the Amorites were subjected to conscripted labor.

The Lord's angelic messenger went up from Gilgal to Bokim. He said, "I brought you up from Egypt and led you into the land I had solemnly promised to give to your ancestors. I said, 'I will never break my agreement with you,

When the Angel of the Lord had spoken these words to all the Israelites, the people wept loudly.

And when Joshua had sent the people away, the [tribes of the] Israelites went each to his inheritance, to take possession of the land.

The people worshiped the Lord throughout Joshua's lifetime and as long as the elderly men who outlived him remained alive. These men had witnessed all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.

That entire generation passed away; a new generation grew up that had not personally experienced the Lord's presence or seen what he had done for Israel.

and abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods from the surrounding peoples and bowed down to them. They infuriated the Lord,

Wherefore the LORD waxed angry with Israel, and delivered them unto the hands of raveners to spoil them and sold them into the hands of their enemies round about them, so that they had no power any longer to stand before their enemies.

Whenever they went out to fight, the Lord did them harm, just as he had warned and solemnly vowed he would do. They suffered greatly.

But they did not obey their leaders. Instead they prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned aside from the path their ancestors had walked. Their ancestors had obeyed the Lord's commands, but they did not.

And when the LORD raised them up judges, then the LORD was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for the LORD had compassion because of their groanings because of them that oppressed them and vexed them.

However, after the leader had died, they would relapse to a condition more corrupt than their ancestors, following other gods, serving them, and worshiping them. They would not abandon their activities or their obstinate lifestyles.

I did this to test Israel and to see whether they would keep the Lord’s way by walking in it, as their fathers had.”

So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out at once; and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

These were the nations the Lord permitted to remain so he could use them to test Israel -- he wanted to test all those who had not experienced battle against the Canaanites.

He left those nations simply because he wanted to teach the subsequent generations of Israelites, who had not experienced the earlier battles, how to conduct holy war.

The Lord left them to test Israel, to determine if they would keep the Lord’s commands He had given their fathers through Moses.

The land had rest for forty years; then Othniel son of Kenaz died.

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord's sight. The Lord gave King Eglon of Moab control over Israel because they had done evil in the Lord's sight.

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.

but, he himself, turned back from the images that were by Gilgal, and said, A secret word, have I, unto thee, O king! And he said - Silence! Thereupon went out from his presence all who had been standing near him.

Ehud came to him as he was sitting alone in his [private] cool upper chamber, and Ehud said, “I have a message from God for you.” And the king got up from his seat.

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."

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!

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

It came about when he had arrived, that he blew the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was in front of them.

Israel humiliated Moab that day, and the land had rest for eighty years.

The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud had died.

The Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, because Sisera had nine hundred chariots with iron-rimmed wheels, and he cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.

(And she had her seat under the palm-tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in the hill-country of Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her to be judged.)

Now Heber the Kenite had moved away from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses' father-in-law. He lived near the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.

When Sisera heard that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor,

he ordered all his chariotry -- nine hundred chariots with iron-rimmed wheels -- and all the troops he had with him to go from Harosheth-Haggoyim to the River Kishon.

Now Sisera ran away on foot to the tent of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, for King Jabin of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite had made a peace treaty.

And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle.

But Heber's wife Jael grabbed a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other, crept up to him quietly, and drove the tent peg right through his temple into the ground below after he had fallen sound asleep from exhaustion. That's how he died.

And the hand of the children of Israel prospered, and prevailed against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.

In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael caravans disappeared; travelers had to go on winding side roads.

They had no one to make arms, there were no more armed men in the towns; was there a body-cover or a spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel?

In the place of the noise of bowmen among the wells, there, laud ye - the righteous acts of Yahweh, the righteous acts of his rule over Israel. Then, had come down to the gates the people of Yahweh.

"Then they that had escaped, reigned over the proudest of the people. The LORD reigneth over the strong.

Out of Ephraim, came down they whose root was in Amalek, After thee, Benjamin, among thy tribes, - Out of Machir, had come down governors, And, out of Zebulun, such as bear aloft the staff of the marshal;

Wherefore abodes thou among the folds? To hear the mocking of the flocks? The divisions of Reuben, had great counsellings of heart.

She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.

May all your enemies perish like this, O Lord! But may those who love you shine like the rising sun at its brightest!" And the land had rest for forty years.

And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them;

Then Gideon went in and made ready a young goat, and with an ephah of meal he made unleavened cakes: he put the meat in a basket and the soup in which it had been cooked he put in a pot, and he took it out to him under the oak-tree and gave it to him there.

Then the messenger of Yahweh put forth the end of the staff, that was in his hand, and touched the flesh, and the cakes, - and there came up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh, and the cakes, and, the messenger of Yahweh, had departed out of his sight.

When Gideon realized that he had seen the angel of the LORD himself, he cried out, "Oh no! Lord GOD! I've been looking right at the angel of the LORD and face-to-face at that!"

So Gideon took ten of his servants and did just as the Lord had told him. He was too afraid of his father's family and the men of the city to do it in broad daylight, so he waited until nighttime.

Early the next morning when the men of the city got up, they discovered that the altar of Baal was torn down, and the Asherah which was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar which had been built.

They said to one another, "Who did this?" They investigated the matter thoroughly and concluded that Gideon son of Joash had done it.

Then the men of the city said to Joash, Bring out your son so that he may die (because he had cast down the altar of Baal, and because he had cut down the pillar by it).

That very day Gideon's father named him Jerub-Baal, because he had said, "Let Baal fight with him, for it was his altar that was pulled down."

When all the Midianites, the Amalekites and they of the east were gathered together and had gone and pitched in the valley of Jezreel,

And when he had brought down the people unto the water, the LORD said unto Gideon, "As many as lap the water with their tongues, as dogs do, them put by themselves; and so do them that kneel down upon their knees to drink."

Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and all the Qedemites had settled down in the valley like a swarm of locusts, and their camels were as innumerable as the sand on the seashore.

When Gideon arrived, he heard a man telling another man about a dream he had. The man said, "Look! I had a dream. I saw a stale cake of barley bread rolling into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent so hard it knocked it over and turned it upside down. The tent just collapsed."

Gideon took a hundred men to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guards. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars they were carrying.

So the three bands all gave a loud note on their horns, and when the vessels had been broken, they took the flaming branches in their left hands, and the horns in their right hands ready for blowing, crying out, For the Lord and for Gideon.

Now Gideon sent messengers throughout the Ephraimite hill country who announced, "Go down and head off the Midianites. Take control of the fords of the streams all the way to Beth Barah and the Jordan River." When all the Ephraimites had assembled, they took control of the fords all the way to Beth Barah and the Jordan River.

God hath delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb: and what was I able to do in comparison of you? Then their anger was abated toward him, when he had said that.

Now Gideon and his three hundred men had crossed over the Jordan River, and even though they were exhausted, they were still chasing the Midianites.

He went up from there to Penuel and made the same request. The men of Penuel responded the same way the men of Succoth had.

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their armies. There were about fifteen thousand survivors from the army of the eastern peoples; a hundred and twenty thousand sword-wielding soldiers had been killed.

So Gideon went up by the way of the tent-dwellers, on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and smote the host, when, the host, had become secure.

When Zebah and Zalmunna ran away, Gideon chased them and captured the two Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna. He had surprised their entire army.

And Gideon the son of Joash returned from battle before the sun had risen,

Then he took the responsible men of the town and had them crushed on a bed of thorns and sharp stems.

And he had the tower of Penuel broken down and the men of the town put to death.

And he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, "What type [were] the men whom you killed at Tabor?" And they said, "{They were like you}; each [one of them] had the appearance of the sons of the king."

He said, "They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. I swear, as surely as the Lord is alive, if you had let them live, I would not kill you."

Gideon continued, "I would like to make one request. Each of you give me an earring from the plunder you have taken." (The Midianites had gold earrings because they were Ishmaelites.)

And they gave answer, We will gladly give them. So they put down a robe, every man dropping into it the ear-rings he had taken.

The weight of the rings that he had asked for was 1,700 gold coins, not counting the crescent-shaped necklaces, pendants, and purple garments worn by the Midian kings, and also not counting the bands adorning the necks of their camels.

The Israelites humiliated Midian; the Midianites' fighting spirit was broken. The land had rest for forty years during Gideon's time.

And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives.

And the servant-wife he had in Shechem had a son by him, to whom he gave the name Abimelech.

The Israelites did not remain true to the Lord their God, who had delivered them from all the enemies who lived around them.

They did not treat the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) fairly in return for all the good he had done for Israel.

and they gave him 70 silver coins from the temple that they had built to Baal-berith. Abimelech hired some worthless and useless men, who followed him

And he entered the house of his father, at Ophrah, and slew his brethren, sons of Jerubbaal, seventy men, upon one stone, - but there remained Jotham, the youngest son of Jerubbaal, for he had hidden himself.

When Abimelech had reigned three years over Israel,

so that the crime against the 70 sons of Jerubbaal might come to justice and their blood would be avenged on their brother Abimelech, who killed them, and on the lords of Shechem, who had helped him kill his brothers.

And they went out into their fields and got in the fruit of their vines, and when the grapes had been crushed, they made a holy feast and went into the house of their god, and over their food and drink they were cursing Abimelech.

If only I had authority over this people! I would put Abimelech out of the way, and I would say to Abimelech, Make your army strong, and come out.

Now Zebul, the ruler of the town, hearing what Gaal, the son of Ebed, had said, was moved to wrath.

And Gaal, the son of Ebed, went out, and took his place at the doorway into the town; then Abimelech and his people got up from the place where they had been waiting.