"I want this blessing from you," she replied. "Since you've given me land in the Negev, give me water springs, too." So Caleb gave her both the upper and lower springs.

They waited until they were embarrassed, since he never opened the doors to the chamber. Eventually they took a key, opened the doors, and found their master dead on the ground.

She regularly took her seat under the Palm Tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountainous region of Ephraim, where the Israelis would approach her for decisions.

"Kings came to fight, then battled the kings of Canaan at Taanach near the waters of Megiddo. They took no silver as the spoils of war.

So Gideon went with ten men who were his servants and did just what the LORD had told him to do, though he did it at night because he was too afraid of his father's family and the leading men of the city to do it during the day.

So the Spirit of the LORD took control of Gideon, who blew a trumpet, mustering the descendants of Abiezer to follow him into battle.

The LORD told Gideon, "You have too many soldiers with you for me to drop Midian into their hands, because Israel would become arrogant and say, "It was my own abilities that delivered me.'

"There are still too many soldiers," the LORD told Gideon. "Bring them down to the water and I'll refine them for you there. Therefore when I say to you, "This one will be going with you,' he'll go with you, but no one may go about whom I tell you, "This one won't be going with you.'"

So the soldiers took provisions with them, along with their trumpets, and Gideon sent all the rest of the soldiers of Israel back to their own tents, but he retained the 300 men. And the Midian encampment was below him in the valley.

So he took the elders of the city and disciplined the men of Succoth with thorns and briers from the desert.

Then Zebah and Zalmunna responded, "Get up and attack us yourself, since a man's valor is only as good as the man himself." So Gideon got up, killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and took away the crescent-shaped necklaces that adorned the necks of their camels.

When Jotham was informed about this, he went out, took his stand on top of Mount Gerizim, and cried out loudly, "Listen to me, you "lords" of Shechem, and God will listen to you.

So he took his army, divided it into three separate companies, and laid in ambush out in the field. When Abimelech noticed the people coming out from the city, his army attacked them and killed them.

The king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthah, "We're here because Israel took away my land from the Arnon River as far as the Jabbok River and as far as the Jordan River when they came up from Egypt! So restore it as a gesture of good will."

The LORD God of Israel handed Sihon and his entire army into the control of Israel, and defeated them. As a result, Israel took control over the entire land of the Amorites, who were living in that country.

They took possession of the entire territory of the Amorites from the Arnon River as far as the Jabbok River and from the desert as far as the Jordan River.

When I saw that you wouldn't be delivering me, I took my own life in my hands, crossed over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into my control. So why have you come here today to fight me?"

So he scraped some out into his hands and went on his way, eating all the while. When he met his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they ate it, too. But he didn't inform them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.

Then the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, killed 30 men, took their belongings, and gave the garments to those who had told him the solution to the riddle. He remained furious, left for his father's house,

Then the Philistines demanded, "Who did this?" Someone said, "Samson, son-in-law of the Timnite, because his father-in-law took Samson's wife and gave her to the best man at Samson's wedding." In retaliation, the Philistines came up and burned her and her father to death.

So Delilah took the seven locks on his head and wove them into the loom while he slept. She fastened his hair with a peg and then told him, "The Philistines are attacking you, Samson!" But he woke up from his nap and pulled the pin from the loom and the weaving.

Afterwards, his brothers and his father's household servants came down, took him, brought him back, and buried him in his father Manoah's tomb between Zorah and Eshtaol. He had governed Israel for 20 years.

He told his mother, "Do you remember those 1,100 silver coins that were stolen from you and about which you uttered a curse when I could hear it? Well, I have the silver. I took it." So she replied, "May my son be blessed by the LORD."

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.

After they went into Micah's home and took possession of the carved image, the ephod, the household idols, and the cast image, the priest challenged them. "What are you doing?" he asked them.

The priest was happy to oblige, so he took the ephod, the household idols, and the carved image and went along with the army.

Micah replied, "You took my gods that I crafted, along with the priest, and left! What do I have left? So what's with this "What's wrong with you?'"

Then the descendants of Dan went on their way. Because Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back home.

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 it happened in those days, before there was a king in Israel, that a certain male descendant of Levi, who lived in a remote part of the mountainous region of Ephraim, took a mistress for himself from Bethlehem in the territory of Judah.

when her husband got up and went after her, intending to speak lovingly to her in order to win her back. He took with him his young man servant and a pair of donkeys. When she brought him into her father's house to see him, her father was happy to have met him.

So he took him into his home and fed the donkeys while they refreshed themselves and had dinner.

But the men were unwilling to listen to him. So the descendant of Levi grabbed his mistress, took her out to them, and they raped and tortured her all night until morning. Then they released her as the first daylight was beginning to appear.

But there was no response. So he placed her on the donkey, mounted his own animal, and went home. When he arrived home, he grabbed a knife, took hold of his mistress, cut her apart limb by limb into twelve pieces, and sent her remains throughout the land of Israel.

The officials of the entire nation, including every tribe of Israel, took their stand in the assembly of the people of God: 400,000 foot soldiers, all of them expert swordsmen.

since when they took a census of the assembly, not even one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was in attendance.