When Zebah and Zalmunna ran away, Gideon chased them and captured the two Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna. He had surprised their entire army.

And Gideon the son of Joash returned from battle before the sun had risen,

Then he took the responsible men of the town and had them crushed on a bed of thorns and sharp stems.

And he had the tower of Penuel broken down and the men of the town put to death.

And he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, "What type [were] the men whom you killed at Tabor?" And they said, "{They were like you}; each [one of them] had the appearance of the sons of the king."

And he said, They were my brethren, even the sons of my mother: as the LORD liveth, if ye had saved them alive, I would not slay you.

And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)

And they gave answer, We will gladly give them. So they put down a robe, every man dropping into it the ear-rings he had taken.

The weight of the rings that he had asked for was 1,700 gold coins, not counting the crescent-shaped necklaces, pendants, and purple garments worn by the Midian kings, and also not counting the bands adorning the necks of their camels.

And Midian was subdued before the sons of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon.

And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives.

And the servant-wife he had in Shechem had a son by him, to whom he gave the name Abimelech.

And the children of Israel remembered not the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:

Neither shewed they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, namely, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shewed unto Israel.

and they gave him 70 silver coins from the temple that they had built to Baal-berith. Abimelech hired some worthless and useless men, who followed him

And he entered the house of his father, at Ophrah, and slew his brethren, sons of Jerubbaal, seventy men, upon one stone, - but there remained Jotham, the youngest son of Jerubbaal, for he had hidden himself.

When Abimelech had reigned three years over Israel,

so that the crime against the 70 sons of Jerubbaal might come to justice and their blood would be avenged on their brother Abimelech, who killed them, and on the lords of Shechem, who had helped him kill his brothers.

And they went out into their fields and got in the fruit of their vines, and when the grapes had been crushed, they made a holy feast and went into the house of their god, and over their food and drink they were cursing Abimelech.

If only I had authority over this people! I would put Abimelech out of the way, and I would say to Abimelech, Make your army strong, and come out.

When Zebul, the ruler of the city, heard what Ebed's son Gaal had said, he flew into a rage.

And Gaal, the son of Ebed, went out, and took his place at the doorway into the town; then Abimelech and his people got up from the place where they had been waiting.

And he took the people, and divided them into three companies, and laid wait in the field, and looked, and behold, the people had come out of the city; and he rose up against them, and smote them.

And all that day Abimelech was fighting against the town; and he took it, and put to death the people who were in it, and had the town pulled down and covered with salt.

When all the "lords" at the tower of Shechem heard what had happened, they retreated into the inner chamber of the temple of El-berith.

It was told to Abimelech that all the lords of the tower of Shechem had gathered.

So he went up to Mount Zalmon, accompanied by his entire army. Abimelech had an axe in his hand, so he cut down a branch from a tree, lifted it up, and laid it on his shoulder. Then he told the army that had accompanied him, "You've seen what I just did. Hurry up! Do the same thing!"

In this way, God turned back on Abimelech the evil that he had done against his father, by killing his 70 brothers.

And God sent back on to the heads of the men of Shechem all the evil they had done, and the curse of Jotham, the son of Jerubbaal, came on them.

And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havothjair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead.

So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people appointed him head and military commander over them. Jephthah uttered everything he had to say with the solemnity of an oath in the LORD's presence at Mizpah.

But the king of the Ammonites wouldn't heed the message that Jephthah had sent to him.

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,

Then Jephthah said to them, “My people and I had a serious conflict with the Ammonites. So I called for you, but you didn’t deliver me from their power.

So when I saw that there was no help to be had from you, I put my life in my hand and went over against the children of Ammon, and the Lord gave them into my hands: why then have you come up to me this day to make war on me?

Then Jephthah gathered all of the men of Gilead. They fought and defeated Ephraim, because Ephraim had said, “You Gileadites are Ephraimite fugitives in the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh.”

And the Gileadites took the fords of Jordan before the Ephraimites. And it happened that when one of those Ephraimites who had escaped said, Let me go over, the men of Gilead said to him, Are you an Ephraimite? And he said, No.

And, when Jephthah had judged Israel six years, then Jephthah the Gileadite died, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.

And he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters, whom he sent abroad, and took in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years.

And when Ibozan had judged Israel seven years, he died and was buried at Bethlehem.

And he had forty sons and thirty nephews, that rode on threescore and ten ass colts: and he judged Israel eight years.

And when Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite had judged Israel eight years, he died and was buried in Pirathon, the land of Ephraim in the mount of the Amalekites.

There was a certain man from Zorah, from the family of Dan, whose name was Manoah; his wife was unable to conceive and had no children.

Then the woman went to tell her husband. She said, "A man of God appeared to me. He looked like what an angel of God would look like very frightening. I didn't ask him where he had come from and he didn't tell me his name.

But the messenger of Yahweh said unto Manoah - Though thou detain me, yet will I not eat of thy food, and, though thou make ready an ascending-sacrifice, unto Yahweh, must thou cause it to ascend. For Manoah had not discerned that, the angel of Yahweh, he was.

The angel of the LORD did not appear again to Manoah or to his wife, and then Manoah knew confidently that the visitor had been the angel of the LORD.

But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had intended to kill us, He wouldn’t have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us, and He would not have shown us all these things or spoken to us now like this.”

But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.

So he went down and had talk with the woman; and she was pleasing to Samson.

And he took thereof in his hands, and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat: but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcase of the lion.

When the Philistines saw he had no attendants, they gave him thirty groomsmen who kept him company.

She wept the whole seven days of the feast, and at last, on the seventh day, he explained it to her, because she had nagged him so much. Then she explained it to her people.

And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion? And he said unto them, If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.

The Spirit of the Lord took control of him, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed 30 of their men. He stripped them and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. In a rage, Samson returned to his father’s house,

But Samson's wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend.

And her father said, I verily thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray you, instead of her.

And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.

Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, and the ropes on his arms were like flax (linen) that had been burned, and his bonds dropped off his hands.

And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramathlehi.

But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day.

Samson went down to Gaza; there he saw a prostitute and {had sex with her}.

Meanwhile, Samson had sex until midnight, then at midnight he got up, grabbed the doors, the two door posts, and the bars of the city gate, and uprooted them. He put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the mountain opposite Hebron.

Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green withs which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.

Now she had an ambush waiting in the inner room. She said to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson." He broke the cords, as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known.

And Delilah took new ropes and bound him therewith, and said unto him, "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson." And there were layers of wait in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms, as they had been but a thread.

And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath shewed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand.

She made him sleep upon her knees; and she called a man, and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him.

And she said to him, "[The] Philistines [are] upon you, Samson!" And he woke up from his sleep and said, "I will go out just like every other time and shake myself free," but he did not know that Yahweh had left him.

But the hair of his head began to grow back after it had been shaved off.

The rulers of [the] Philistines had gathered to sacrifice a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to rejoice. And they said, "Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand."

When they were drunk, they said, “Bring Samson here to entertain us.” So they brought Samson from prison, and he entertained them. They had him stand between the pillars.

Then Samson told the young man who had been leading him around by the hand, "Let me touch and feel the pillars on which this building rests, and I'll support myself against them."

Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the leaders and all the people in it. And the dead he killed at his death were more than those he had killed in his life.

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.

And when he had restored the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee.

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.

And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

In those days Israel had no king. Each man did what he considered to be right.

There was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah. He was a Levite who had been temporarily residing among the tribe of Judah.

The man had left his city Bethlehem in Judah to live wherever he could. As he traveled along, he eventually arrived at Micah's house in the mountainous region of Ephraim, looking for work.

In those days there was no king in Israel: and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in; for unto that day all their inheritance had not fallen unto them among the tribes of Israel.

He told them what Micah had done for him and that he had hired him as his priest.

Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people that were therein, how they dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure; and there was no magistrate in the land, that might put them to shame in any thing; and they were far from the Zidonians, and had no business with any man.

The five men who had gone to scout out the land of Laish told their brothers, “Did you know that there are an ephod, household gods, and a carved image overlaid with silver in these houses? Now think about what you should do.”

Then the five men who had gone to scout out the land went in and took the carved image overlaid with silver, the ephod, and the household idols, while the priest was standing by the entrance of the gate with the 600 men armed with weapons of war.

But, when, these, had entered the house of Micah, and taken the graven image and the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image, the priest said unto them, What are ye doing?

They had gone far away from the house of Micah, and the men in the houses near Micah's house had been called together and had overtaken the sons of Dan.

He said, "You took away my gods that I had made, and the priest, and then you go [away]. What [is] now left for me? How can you say to me, 'What is the matter?'"

The descendants of Dan answered him, "You had better not talk to us about this, or else these bad guys here will attack you. You will lose your life, along with the lives of your whole household."

And they took the things which Micah had made, and the priest which he had, and came unto Laish, unto a people that were at quiet and secure: and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city with fire.

And there was no deliverer, because it was far from Zidon, and they had no business with any man; and it was in the valley that lieth by Bethrehob. And they built a city, and dwelt therein.

They renamed the city Dan, after the name of their ancestor Dan, who had been born in Israel. The former name of the city was Laish.

So they set up for themselves the carved divine image that Micah had made, all the days that the house of God [was] in Shiloh.

In those days Israel had no king. There was a Levite living temporarily in the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. He acquired a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.

But his mistress was sexually unfaithful to him, and then she left him to live in her father's home in Bethlehem in the territory of Judah. She had been living there for a period of about four months

Then her husband arose and went after her, to speak kindly to her and bring her back. He had with him his servant and a couple of asses. And he came to her father's house; and when the girl's father saw him, he came with joy to meet him.

And his father-in-law, the girl's father, kept him there for three days; and they had food and drink and took their rest there.