The Lord answered, “Judah is to go. I have handed the land over to him.”

Judah said to his brother Simeon, “Come with me to my territory, and let us fight against the Canaanites. I will also go with you to your territory.” So Simeon went with him.

When Judah attacked, the Lord handed the Canaanites and Perizzites over to them. They struck down 10,000 men in Bezek.

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

Afterward, the men of Judah marched down to fight against the Canaanites who were living in the hill country, the Negev, and the Judean foothills.

Judah also marched against the Canaanites who were living in Hebron (Hebron was formerly named Kiriath-arba). They struck down Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai.

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.

Judah went with his brother Simeon, struck the Canaanites who were living in Zephath, and completely destroyed the town. So they named the town Hormah.

Judah captured Gaza and its territory, Ashkelon and its territory, and Ekron and its territory.

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.

The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin, and the house of Ephraim. Israel was greatly oppressed,

The Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and raided Lehi.

So the men of Judah said, “Why have you attacked us?”

They replied, “We have come to arrest Samson and pay him back for what he did to us.”

Then 3,000 men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?”

“I have done to them what they did to me,” he answered.

There was a young man, a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, who resided within the clan of Judah.

The man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah to settle wherever he could find a place. On his way he came to Micah’s home in the hill country of Ephraim.

“Where do you come from?” Micah asked him.

He answered him, “I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, and I’m going to settle wherever I can find a place.”

They went up and camped at Kiriath-jearim in Judah. This is why the place is called the Camp of Dan to this day; it is west of Kiriath-jearim.

In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite living in a remote part of the hill country of Ephraim acquired a woman from Bethlehem in Judah as his concubine.

But she was unfaithful to him and left him for her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah. She was there for a period of four months.

He answered him, “We’re traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote hill country of Ephraim, where I am from. I went to Bethlehem in Judah, and now I’m going to the house of the Lord. No one has taken me into his home,

They set out, went to Bethel, and inquired of God. The Israelites asked, “Who is to go first to fight for us against the Benjaminites?”

And the Lord answered, “Judah will be first.”