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.

From there [the tribe of] Judah went against the inhabitants of Debir (the name of Debir formerly was Kiriath-sepher [city of books and scribes]).

Then they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said, and he drove out from there the three sons of Anak.

So they named that place Bochim (weepers); and there they offered sacrifices to the Lord.

Also, all [the people of] that generation were gathered to their fathers [in death]; and another generation arose after them who did not know (recognize, understand) the Lord, nor even the work which He had done for Israel.

They waited [a very long time] until they became embarrassed and uneasy, but he still did not open the doors of the upper room. So [finally] they took the key and opened them, and behold, their master had fallen to the floor, dead.

But Sisera fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

And he said to her, “Stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, ‘Is there anyone here?’ tell him, ‘No.’”

“They chose new gods;
Then war was in the gates.
Was there a shield or spear seen
Among forty thousand in Israel?

“At the sound of those who divide flocks among the watering places,
There they shall recount the righteous acts of the Lord,
The righteous acts toward His villagers in Israel.
Then the people of the Lord went down to the gates.

“Why [Reuben] did you linger among the sheepfolds,
To hear the piping for the flocks?
Among the divisions of Reuben
There were great searchings of heart.

“He bowed, he fell, he lay [still] at her feet;
At her feet he bowed, he fell;
Where he bowed, there he fell dead.

Then the Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in His hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire flared up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the Angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.

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

behold, I will put a fleece of [freshly sheared] wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece, and it is dry on all the ground [around it], then I will know that You will rescue Israel through me, as You have said.”

Then Gideon said to God, “Do not let your anger burn against me, so that I may speak once more. Please let me make a test once more with the fleece; now let only the fleece be dry, and let there be dew on all the ground.”

God did so that night; for it was dry only on the fleece, and there was dew on all the ground [around it].

Then the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many people; bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. Therefore it shall be that he of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go with you; but everyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”

He went from there up to Penuel and spoke similarly to them; and the men of Penuel answered him just as the men of Succoth had answered.

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their armies, about fifteen thousand [fighting] men, all who were left of the entire army of the sons of the east; for a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had fallen.

Gideon made [all the golden earrings into] an ephod [a sacred, high priest’s garment], and put it in his city of Ophrah, and all Israel worshiped it as an idol there, and it became a trap for Gideon and his household.

Then Jotham escaped and fled, and went to Beer and lived there because of Abimelech his brother.

But there was a strong (fortified) tower in the center of the city, and all the men and women with all the leaders of the city fled to it and shut themselves in; and they went up on the roof of the tower.

After Abimelech died, Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, arose to save Israel; and he lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim.

they said to him, “Then say ‘Shibboleth.’” And he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it correctly. Then they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time forty-two thousand of the Ephraimites fell.

And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was infertile and had no children.

But his father and mother said to him, “Is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised (pagan) Philistines?” And Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, because she looks pleasing to me.”

His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for that was the customary thing for young men to do.

Then Samson went to Gaza and saw a prostitute there, and went in to her.

Now the house was full of men and women; all the Philistine lords were there, and on the flat roof were about three thousand men and women who looked on while Samson was entertaining them.

There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah.

In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Now there was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah, from the family [of the tribe] of Judah, who was a Levite; and he was staying there [temporarily].

In those days there was no king in Israel; and in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking an inheritance [of land] for themselves to live in, for until then an inheritance had not been allotted to them as a possession among the tribes of Israel.

So the sons of Dan sent from the total number of their [extended] family five brave men from Zorah and Eshtaol, to scout the land and to explore it; and they said to them, “Go, explore the land.” They came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there.

When they passed near Micah’s house, they recognized the voice of the young man, the Levite, and they turned aside there and said to him, “Who brought you here? And what are you doing in this place? And what do you have here?”

Then the five men went on and came to Laish and saw the people who were there, [how they were] living securely in the style of the Sidonians, quiet and peaceful; and there was no oppressive magistrate in the land humiliating them in anything, and they were far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone.

When you enter, you will come to people [feeling] safe and secure with a spacious land [widely extended on all sides]; for God has given it into your hands—a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth.”

Then from the [tribal] family of the Danites, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, six hundred men armed with weapons of war set out.

They went on from there to the hill country of Ephraim and came to Micah’s house.

Then the five men who had gone to scout the country of Laish said to their relatives, “Do you know that there are in these houses an ephod, teraphim, an image [of silver-plated wood], and a cast image [of solid silver]? Now therefore, consider what you should do.”

And there was no one to rescue them because it was far from Sidon and they had no dealings with anyone. It was in the valley which belongs to Beth-rehob. And they rebuilt the city and lived in it.

Now it happened in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that a certain Levite living [as an alien] in the most remote part of the hill country of Ephraim, who took a concubine for himself from Bethlehem in Judah.

But his concubine was unfaithful to him, and left him and went to her father’s house in Bethlehem of Judah, and stayed there for a period of four months.

So his father-in-law, the girl’s father, detained him; and he stayed there with him for three days. So they ate and drank, and he lodged there.

Then the man got up to leave, but his father-in-law urged him [strongly to remain]; so he spent the night there again.

But his master said to him, “We will not turn aside into a city of foreigners who are not of the sons (descendants) of Israel. We will go on as far as Gibeah.”

and they turned aside there to go in and spend the night in Gibeah. And the Levite went in and sat down in the open square of the city, because no man invited them into his house to spend the night.

The Levite replied, “We are passing through from Bethlehem [in the territory] of Judah to the most remote part of the hill country of Ephraim; I am from there. I went to Bethlehem of Judah, but I am now going [home] to my house, and there is no man [in the city] who will take me into his house [for the night].

Yet we have both straw and feed for our donkeys, and also bread and wine for me, and for your handmaid, and for the young man who is with your servant; there is no lack of anything.”

He said to her, “Get up, and let us go.” But there was no answer [for she had died]. Then he put her [body] on the donkey; and the man left and went home.

All who saw the dismembered parts said, “Nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day that the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, take counsel, and speak [your minds]!”

(Now the Benjamites [in whose territory the crime was committed] heard that the [other tribes of the] sons of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.) And the sons of Israel said, “How did this evil thing happen?”

Then all the sons of Israel and all the people went up and came to Bethel and wept; and they sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.

And the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord (for the ark of the covenant of God was there [at Bethel] in those days,

When the ten thousand choice [fighting] men from all Israel came against Gibeah, the battle was hard and fierce; but the Benjamites did not realize that disaster was about to strike them.

Thus eighteen thousand men of Benjamin fell, all of these brave and able warriors.

So the people came to Bethel and sat there before God until evening, and lifted up their voices and wept bitterly.

They said, “O Lord, God of Israel, why has this come about in Israel, that there should be today one tribe missing from Israel?”

And the next day the people got up early and built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

And the sons of Israel felt sorry [and had compassion] for their brother Benjamin and said, “One tribe has been cut off from Israel today.

And they said, “Which one is there of the tribes from Israel that did not come up to Mizpah to the Lord?” And behold, [it was discovered that] no one had come to the camp from Jabesh-gilead, to the assembly.

For when the people were assembled, behold, there was not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead there.

And the congregation sent twelve thousand of the most courageous men there, and commanded them saying, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the sword, including the women and the children.

So [the survivors of] Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women whom they had kept alive from the women of Jabesh-gilead; but there were not enough [to provide wives] for them.

They said, “There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be wiped out from Israel.

So they said, “Listen, there is the yearly feast of the Lord at Shiloh, which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south side of Lebonah.”

The sons of Israel departed from there at that time, each man to his tribe and family, and each man went from there to his inheritance.

In those days [when the judges governed] there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.