Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table. God has repaid me for what I have done.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

The men of Judah fought against Jerusalem and captured it. They put the city to the sword and set it on fire.

So Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s youngest brother, captured it, and Caleb gave his daughter Achsah to him as his wife.

When she arrived, she persuaded Othniel to ask her father for a field. As she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What do you want?”

The Lord was with Judah and enabled them to take possession of the hill country, but they could not drive out the people who were living in the valley because those people had iron chariots.

Judah gave Hebron to Caleb, just as Moses had promised. Then Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak who lived there.

At the same time the Benjaminites did not drive out the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem. The Jebusites have lived among the Benjaminites in Jerusalem to this day.

The spies saw a man coming out of the town and said to him, “Please show us how to get into town, and we will treat you well.”

Then the man went to the land of the Hittites, built a town, and named it Luz. That is its name to this day.

At that time Manasseh failed to take possession of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the residents of Dor and its villages, or the residents of Ibleam and its villages, or the residents of Megiddo and its villages; the Canaanites refused to leave this land.

When Israel became stronger, they made the Canaanites serve as forced labor but never drove them out completely.

At that time Ephraim failed to drive out the Canaanites who were living in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived among them in Gezer.

Zebulun failed to drive out the residents of Kitron or the residents of Nahalol, so the Canaanites lived among them and served as forced labor.

Asher failed to drive out the residents of Acco or of Sidon, or Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, or Rehob.

The Asherites lived among the Canaanites who were living in the land, because they failed to drive them out.

Naphtali did not drive out the residents of Beth-shemesh or the residents of Beth-anath. They lived among the Canaanites who were living in the land, but the residents of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath served as their forced labor.

The Angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, “I brought you out of Egypt and led you into the land I had promised to your fathers. I also said: I will never break My covenant with you.

You are not to make a covenant with the people who are living in this land, and you are to tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed Me. What is this you have done?

Therefore, I now say: I will not drive out these people before you. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a trap for you.”

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110.

The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. They worshiped the Baals

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,

Whenever the Israelites went out, the Lord was against them and brought disaster on them, just as He had promised and sworn to them. So they suffered greatly.

I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died.

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.”

The Lord left these nations and did not drive them out immediately. He did not hand them over to Joshua.

The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight; they forgot the Lord their God and worshiped the Baals and the Asherahs.

The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and He sold them to Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram-naharaim, and the Israelites served him eight years.

The Israelites cried out to the Lord. So the Lord raised up Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s youngest brother, as a deliverer to save the Israelites.

The Spirit of the Lord came on him, and he judged Israel. Othniel went out to battle, and the Lord handed over Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram to him, so that Othniel overpowered him.

The Israelites again did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. He gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel, because they had done what was evil in the Lord’s sight.

Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and He raised up Ehud son of Gera, a left-handed Benjaminite, as a deliverer for them. The Israelites sent him to Eglon king of Moab with tribute money.

Ehud made himself a double-edged sword 18 inches long. He strapped it to his right thigh under his clothes

When Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he dismissed the people who had carried it.

At the carved images near Gilgal he returned and said, “King Eglon, I have a secret message for you.” The king called for silence, and all his attendants left him.

Then Ehud approached him while he was sitting alone in his room upstairs where it was cool. Ehud said, “I have a word from God for you,” and the king stood up from his throne.

Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and plunged it into Eglon’s belly.

Even the handle went in after the blade, and Eglon’s fat closed in over it, so that Ehud did not withdraw the sword from his belly. And Eglon’s insides came out.

At that time they struck down about 10,000 Moabites, all strong and able-bodied men. Not one of them escaped.

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

Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, because Jabin had 900 iron chariots, and he harshly oppressed them 20 years.

Deborah, a woman who was a prophetess and the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.

It was her custom to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her for judgment.

Then I will lure Sisera commander of Jabin’s forces, his chariots, and his army at the Wadi Kishon to fight against you, and I will hand him over to you.’”

It was reported to Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up Mount Tabor.

Sisera summoned all his 900 iron chariots and all the people who were with him from Harosheth of the Nations to the Wadi Kishon.

Jael went out to greet Sisera and said to him, “Come in, my lord. Come in with me. Don’t be afraid.” So he went into her tent, and she covered him with a rug.

Then he said to her, “Stand at the entrance to the tent. If a man comes and asks you, ‘Is there a man here?’ say, ‘No.’”

While he was sleeping from exhaustion, Heber’s wife Jael took a tent peg, grabbed a hammer, and went silently to Sisera. She hammered the peg into his temple and drove it into the ground, and he died.

When Barak arrived in pursuit of Sisera, Jael went out to greet him and said to him, “Come and I will show you the man you are looking for.” So he went in with her, and there was Sisera lying dead with a tent peg through his temple!

You who ride on white donkeys,
who sit on saddle blankets,
and who travel on the road, give praise!

Let them tell the righteous acts of the Lord,
the righteous deeds of His warriors in Israel,
with the voices of the singers at the watering places.

Then the Lord’s people went down to the gates.

The princes of Issachar were with Deborah;
Issachar was with Barak.
They set out at his heels in the valley.
There was great searching of heart
among the clans of Reuben.

Gilead remained beyond the Jordan.
Dan, why did you linger at the ships?
Asher remained at the seashore
and stayed in his harbors.

Kings came and fought.
Then the kings of Canaan fought
at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo,
but they took no spoil of silver.

He collapsed, he fell, he lay down at her feet;
he collapsed, he fell at her feet;
where he collapsed, there he fell—dead.

Sisera’s mother looked through the window;
she peered through the lattice, crying out:
“Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why don’t I hear the hoofbeats of his horses?”

The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord handed them over to Midian seven years,

They encamped against them and destroyed the produce of the land, even as far as Gaza. They left nothing for Israel to eat, as well as no sheep, ox or donkey.

For the Midianites came with their cattle and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were without number, and they entered the land to waste it.

So Israel became poverty-stricken because of Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the Lord.

When the Israelites cried out to Him because of Midian,

the Lord sent a prophet to them. He said to them, “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I brought you out of Egypt and out of the place of slavery.

I delivered you from the power of Egypt and the power of all who oppressed you. I drove them out before you and gave you their land.

The Angel of the Lord came, and He sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in the wine vat in order to hide it from the Midianites.

Gideon said to Him, “Please Sir, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened? And where are all His wonders that our fathers told us about? They said, ‘Hasn’t the Lord brought us out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”

“But I will be with you,” the Lord said to him. “You will strike Midian down as if it were one man.”

Please do not leave this place until I return to You. Let me bring my gift and set it before You.”

And He said, “I will stay until you return.”

So Gideon went and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from a half bushel of flour. He placed the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot. He brought them out and offered them to Him under the oak.

The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat with the unleavened bread, put it on this stone, and pour the broth on it.” And he did so.

So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it Yahweh Shalom. It is in Ophrah of the Abiezrites until today.

On that very night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s young bull and a second bull seven years old. Then tear down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.

Build a well-constructed altar to the Lord your God on the top of this rock. Take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah pole you cut down.”

So Gideon took 10 of his male servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city to do it in the daytime, he did it at night.

When the men of the city got up in the morning, they found Baal’s altar torn down, the Asherah pole beside it cut down, and the second bull offered up on the altar that had been built.

They said to each other, “Who did this?” After they made a thorough investigation, they said, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”

Then the men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he tore down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.”

And that is what happened. When he got up early in the morning, he squeezed the fleece and wrung dew out of it, filling a bowl with water.

Gideon then said to God, “Don’t be angry with me; let me speak one more time. Please allow me to make one more test with the fleece. Let it remain dry, and the dew be all over the ground.”

The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many people for Me to hand the Midianites over to you, or else Israel might brag: ‘I did it myself.’

That night the Lord said to him, “Get up and go into the camp, for I have given it into your hand.

Listen to what they say, and then you will be strengthened to go to the camp.” So he went with Purah his servant to the outpost of the troops who were in the camp.

When Gideon arrived, there was a man telling his friend about a dream. He said, “Listen, I had a dream: a loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp, struck a tent, and it fell. The loaf turned the tent upside down so that it collapsed.”

Then he divided the 300 men into three companies and gave each of the men a trumpet in one hand and an empty pitcher with a torch inside it in the other.

Gideon and the 100 men who were with him went to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch after the sentries had been stationed. They blew their trumpets and broke the pitchers that were in their hands.

Each Israelite took his position around the camp, and the entire Midianite army fled, and cried out as they ran.

Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim with this message: “Come down to intercept the Midianites and take control of the watercourses ahead of them as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan.” So all the men of Ephraim were called out, and they took control of the watercourses as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan.

They captured Oreb and Zeeb, the two princes of Midian; they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb, while they were pursuing the Midianites. They brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon across the Jordan.

So he said to them, “What have I done now compared to you? Is not the gleaning of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?

God handed over to you Oreb and Zeeb, the two princes of Midian. What was I able to do compared to you?” When he said this, their anger against him subsided.

Gideon and the 300 men came to the Jordan and crossed it. They were exhausted but still in pursuit.

He asked Zebah and Zalmunna, “What kind of men did you kill at Tabor?”

“They were like you,” they said. “Each resembled the son of a king.”

They said, “We agree to give them.” So they spread out a mantle, and everyone threw an earring from his plunder on it.

The weight of the gold earrings he requested was about 43 pounds of gold, in addition to the crescent ornaments and ear pendants, the purple garments on the kings of Midian, and the chains on the necks of their camels.

Gideon made an ephod from all this and put it in Ophrah, his hometown. Then all Israel prostituted themselves with it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his household.

Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) son of Joash went back to live at his house.

Then Gideon son of Joash died at a ripe old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Abimelech son of Jerubbaal went to his mother’s brothers at Shechem and spoke to them and to all his maternal grandfather’s clan, saying,

“Please speak in the presence of all the lords of Shechem, ‘Is it better for you that 70 men, all the sons of Jerubbaal, rule over you or that one man rule over you?’ Remember that I am your own flesh and blood.”

Then all the lords of Shechem and of Beth-millo gathered together and proceeded to make Abimelech king at the oak of the pillar in Shechem.