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.

Meanwhile, Sisera had escaped on foot to a tent belonging to Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, since there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the household of Heber the Kenite.

New gods were chosen, then war came to the city gates, but there wasn't a shield or spear to be seen among 40,000 soldiers of Israel.

So Gideon asked him, "Please, if I have received favor from you, then do a miracle for me that shows that you're making this promise to me.

Gideon arrived just as a soldier was talking to a friend about a dream. "Look!" he was saying. "I had a dream that went like this: A loaf of barley bread rolled into the Midianite encampment, came to a tent, and collided with it. The loaf of bread fell down, turned upside down, and the tent collapsed!"

When they put away their foreign gods and served the LORD, he brought Israel's misery to an end.

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."

One day the angel of the LORD presented himself to the woman. "Hello!" he greeted her. "Though you are infertile at this time and haven't borne a child, you're about to conceive and give birth to a son.

because surprise! you're going to conceive and give birth to a son! Don't put a razor to his head, because the young man will be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from inside the womb. He will begin to deliver Israel from domination by the Philistines."

He told me, "Surprise! you're going to conceive and give birth to a son!' and as for you, "Be sure that you don't drink wine or anything intoxicating, and don't eat anything unclean,' "because the young man will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from inside the womb' until the day he dies."

Later on, the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The child grew strong and the LORD blessed him.

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.

They told him, "Shut up and keep quiet. Come with us and be our spiritual father and priest. It's better for you, isn't it, to be a priest to an entire tribe and family in Israel than to be priest to the home of one man?"

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.

Now the people of Israel had taken a vow in Mizpah that went like this: "Not even one of us will give his daughter in marriage to a descendant of Benjamin!"