Gideon said, "Since you will not help, after the Lord hands Zebah and Zalmunna over to me, I will thresh your skin with desert thorns and briers."

He approached the men of Succoth and said, "Look what I have! Zebah and Zalmunna! You insulted me, saying, 'You have not yet overpowered Zebah and Zalmunna. So why should we give bread to your exhausted men?'"

He said to Zebah and Zalmunna, "Describe for me the men you killed at Tabor." They said, "They were like you. Each one looked like a king's son."

He said, "They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. I swear, as surely as the Lord is alive, if you had let them live, I would not kill you."

Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, "Come on, you strike us, for a man is judged by his strength." So Gideon killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent-shaped ornaments which were on the necks of their camels.

The men of Israel said to Gideon, "Rule over us -- you, your son, and your grandson. For you have delivered us from Midian's power."

Gideon said to them, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you."

They said, "We are happy to give you earrings." So they spread out a garment, and each one threw an earring from his plunder onto it.

Now Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to Shechem to see his mother's relatives. He said to them and to his mother's entire extended family,

His mother's relatives spoke on his behalf to all the leaders of Shechem and reported his proposal. The leaders were drawn to Abimelech; they said, "He is our close relative."

"The trees were determined to go out and choose a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, 'Be our king!'

But the olive tree said to them, 'I am not going to stop producing my oil, which is used to honor gods and men, just to sway above the other trees!'

"So the trees said to the fig tree, 'You come and be our king!'

But the fig tree said to them, 'I am not going to stop producing my sweet figs, my excellent fruit, just to sway above the other trees!'

"So the trees said to the grapevine, 'You come and be our king!'

But the grapevine said to them, 'I am not going to stop producing my wine, which makes gods and men so happy, just to sway above the other trees!'

"So all the trees said to the thornbush, 'You come and be our king!'

The thornbush said to the trees, 'If you really want to choose me as your king, then come along, find safety under my branches! Otherwise may fire blaze from the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!'

Gaal son of Ebed said, "Who is Abimelech and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Jerub-Baal, and is not Zebul the deputy he appointed? Serve the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem! But why should we serve Abimelech?

Now, come up at night with your men and set an ambush in the field outside the city.

So Abimelech and all his men came up at night and set an ambush outside Shechem -- they divided into four units.

Gaal saw the men and said to Zebul, "Look, men are coming down from the tops of the hills." But Zebul said to him, "You are seeing the shadows on the hills -- it just looks like men."

Gaal again said, "Look, men are coming down from the very center of the land. A unit is coming by way of the Oak Tree of the Diviners."

Zebul said to him, "Where now are your bragging words, 'Who is Abimelech that we should serve him?' Are these not the men you insulted? Go out now and fight them!"

he took his men and divided them into three units and set an ambush in the field. When he saw the people coming out of the city, he attacked and struck them down.

He and all his men went up on Mount Zalmon. He took an ax in his hand and cut off a tree branch. He put it on his shoulder and said to his men, "Quickly, do what you have just seen me do!"

So each of his men also cut off a branch and followed Abimelech. They put the branches against the stronghold and set fire to it. All the people of the Tower of Shechem died -- about a thousand men and women.

Abimelech came and attacked the tower. When he approached the entrance of the tower to set it on fire,

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord's sight. They worshiped the Baals and the Ashtars, as well as the gods of Syria, Sidon, Moab, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. They abandoned the Lord and did not worship him.

The Lord said to the Israelites, "Did I not deliver you from Egypt, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines,

But the Israelites said to the Lord, "We have sinned. You do to us as you see fit, but deliver us today!"

The leaders of Gilead said to one another, "Who is willing to lead the charge against the Ammonites? He will become the leader of all who live in Gilead!"

Gilead's wife also gave him sons. When his wife's sons grew up, they made Jephthah leave and said to him, "You are not going to inherit any of our father's wealth, because you are another woman's son."

They said, "Come, be our commander, so we can fight with the Ammonites."

Jephthah said to the leaders of Gilead, "But you hated me and made me leave my father's house. Why do you come to me now, when you are in trouble?"

The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "That may be true, but now we pledge to you our loyalty. Come with us and fight with the Ammonites. Then you will become the leader of all who live in Gilead."

Jephthah said to the leaders of Gilead, "All right! If you take me back to fight with the Ammonites and the Lord gives them to me, I will be your leader."

The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "The Lord will judge any grievance you have against us, if we do not do as you say."

The Ammonite king said to Jephthah's messengers, "Because Israel stole my land when they came up from Egypt -- from the Arnon River in the south to the Jabbok River in the north, and as far west as the Jordan. Now return it peaceably!"

and said to him, "This is what Jephthah says, 'Israel did not steal the land of Moab and the land of the Ammonites.

Then Israel went through the desert and bypassed the land of Edom and the land of Moab. They traveled east of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon River; they did not go through Moabite territory (the Arnon was Moab's border).

Israel sent messengers to King Sihon, the Amorite king who ruled in Heshbon, and said to him, "Please allow us to pass through your land to our land."

When he saw her, he ripped his clothes and said, "Oh no! My daughter! You have completely ruined me! You have brought me disaster! I made an oath to the Lord, and I cannot break it."

She said to him, "My father, since you made an oath to the Lord, do to me as you promised. After all, the Lord vindicated you before your enemies, the Ammonites."

She then said to her father, "Please grant me this one wish. For two months allow me to walk through the hills with my friends and mourn my virginity."

He said, "You may go." He permitted her to leave for two months. She went with her friends and mourned her virginity as she walked through the hills.

The Ephraimites assembled and crossed over to Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, "Why did you go and fight with the Ammonites without asking us to go with you? We will burn your house down right over you!"

Jephthah said to them, "My people and I were entangled in controversy with the Ammonites. I asked for your help, but you did not deliver me from their power.

The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan River opposite Ephraim. Whenever an Ephraimite fugitive said, "Let me cross over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said, "No,"

then they said to him, "Say 'Shibboleth!'" If he said, "Sibboleth" (and could not pronounce the word correctly), they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord's sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.

The Lord's angelic messenger appeared to the woman and said to her, "You are infertile and childless, but you will conceive and have a son.

The woman went and said to her husband, "A man sent from God came to me! He looked like God's angelic messenger -- he was very awesome. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name.

He said to me, 'Look, you will conceive and have a son. So now, do not drink wine or beer and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean. For the child will be dedicated to God from birth till the day he dies.'"

So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met the man, he said to him, "Are you the man who spoke to my wife?" He said, "Yes."

Manoah said, "Now, when your announcement comes true, how should the child be raised and what should he do?"

Manoah said to the Lord's messenger, "Please stay here awhile, so we can prepare a young goat for you to eat."

The Lord's messenger said to Manoah, "If I stay, I will not eat your food. But if you want to make a burnt sacrifice to the Lord, you should offer it." (He said this because Manoah did not know that he was the Lord's messenger.)

Manoah said to the Lord's messenger, "Tell us your name, so we can honor you when your announcement comes true."

The Lord's messenger said to him, "You should not ask me my name, because you cannot comprehend it."

Manoah said to his wife, "We will certainly die, because we have seen a supernatural being!"

But his wife said to him, "If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us. He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now."

But his father and mother said to him, "Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines." But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, because she is the right one for me."

Samson said to them, "I will give you a riddle. If you really can solve it during the seven days the party lasts, I will give you thirty linen robes and thirty sets of clothes.

But if you cannot solve it, you will give me thirty linen robes and thirty sets of clothes." They said to him, "Let us hear your riddle."

He said to them, "Out of the one who eats came something to eat; out of the strong one came something sweet." They could not solve the riddle for three days.

On the fourth day they said to Samson's bride, "Trick your husband into giving the solution to the riddle. If you refuse, we will burn up you and your father's family. Did you invite us here to make us poor?"

So Samson's bride cried on his shoulder and said, "You must hate me; you do not love me! You told the young men a riddle, but you have not told me the solution." He said to her, "Look, I have not even told my father or mother. Do you really expect me to tell you?"

On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" He said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!"

Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. He said to her father, "I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!" But her father would not let him enter.

Her father said, "I really thought you absolutely despised her, so I gave her to your best man. Her younger sister is more attractive than she is. Take her instead!"

Samson said to them, "This time I am justified in doing the Philistines harm!"

He lit the torches and set the jackals loose in the Philistines' standing grain. He burned up the grain heaps and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

Samson said to them, "Because you did this, I will get revenge against you before I quit fighting."

The men of Judah said, "Why are you attacking us?" The Philistines said, "We have come up to take Samson prisoner so we can do to him what he has done to us."

Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?" He said to them, "I have only done to them what they have done to me."

They said to him, "We have come down to take you prisoner so we can hand you over to the Philistines." Samson said to them, "Promise me you will not kill me."

They said to him, "We promise! We will only take you prisoner and hand you over to them. We promise not to kill you." They tied him up with two brand new ropes and led him up from the cliff.

Samson then said, "With the jawbone of a donkey I have left them in heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck down a thousand men!"

He was very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, "You have given your servant this great victory. But now must I die of thirst and fall into hands of the Philistines?"

The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her, "Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces."

So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me what makes you so strong and how you can be subdued and humiliated."

Samson said to her, "If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become weak and be just like any other man."

They hid in the bedroom and then she said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. The secret of his strength was not discovered.

Delilah said to Samson, "Look, you deceived me and told me lies! Now tell me how you can be subdued."

He said to her, "If they tie me tightly with brand new ropes that have never been used, I will become weak and be just like any other man."

So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" (The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) But he tore the ropes from his arms as if they were a piece of thread.

Delilah said to Samson, "Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies. Tell me how you can be subdued." He said to her, "If you weave the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on the loom and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man."

So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He woke up and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.

She said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you will not share your secret with me? Three times you have deceived me and have not told me what makes you so strong."

Finally he told her his secret. He said to her, "My hair has never been cut, for I have been dedicated to God from the time I was conceived. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be just like all other men."

She said, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He woke up and thought, "I will do as I did before and shake myself free." But he did not realize that the Lord had left him.

The rulers of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate. They said, "Our god has handed Samson, our enemy, over to us."

When they really started celebrating, they said, "Call for Samson so he can entertain us!" So they summoned Samson from the prison and he entertained them. They made him stand between two pillars.

Samson said to the young man who held his hand, "Position me so I can touch the pillars that support the temple. Then I can lean on them."

Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" He pushed hard and the temple collapsed on the rulers and all the people in it. He killed many more people in his death than he had killed during his life.

He said to his mother, "You know the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole it, but now I am giving it back to you." His mother said, "May the Lord reward you, my son!"

When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, "I solemnly dedicate this silver to the Lord. It will be for my son's benefit. We will use it to make a carved image and a metal image."

Micah said to him, "Where do you come from?" He replied, "I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. I am looking for a new place to live."

Micah said to him, "Stay with me. Become my adviser and priest. I will give you ten pieces of silver per year, plus clothes and food."