It happened, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and played the prostitute after the Baals, and made Baal Berith their god.

neither did they show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shown to Israel.

"Please speak in the ears of all the lords of Shechem, 'Is it better for you that all the sons of Jerubbaal, who are seventy persons, rule over you, or that one rule over you?' Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.'"

And his mother's brothers spoke of him in the ears of all the lords of Shechem all these words: and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech; for they said, "He is our brother."

The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said to the olive tree, 'Reign you over us.'

"The trees said to the fig tree, 'Come, and reign over us.'

"The trees said to the vine, 'Come, and reign over us.'

"Then all the trees said to the bramble, 'Come, and reign over us.'

and you are risen up against my father's house this day, and have slain his sons, seventy persons, on one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his female servant, king over the lords of Shechem, because he is your brother).

Gaal the son of Ebed said, "Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? Isn't he the son of Jerubbaal, and Zebul his officer? Serve the men of Hamor the father of Shechem. But why should we serve him?

And it shall be that in the morning, as soon as the sun is up, you shall rise early, and rush on the city. And behold, when he and the people who are with him come out against you, then do whatever you can to them."

When Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, "Behold, there are people coming down from the tops of the mountains." Zebul said to him, "You see the shadow of the mountains as if they were men."

Then Zebul said to him, "Where is now your mouth, that you said, 'Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him?' Is not this the people that you have despised? Please go out now and fight with them."

Abimelech got him up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people who were with him; and Abimelech took an axe in his hand, and cut down a branch from the trees, and took it up, and laid it on his shoulder. And he said to the people who were with him, "What you have seen me do, do quickly, and do as I have done."

They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. Eighteen years they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

The children of Israel said to the LORD, "We have sinned. Do to us whatever seems good to you; only deliver us, please, this day."

And the people, the leaders of Gilead, said to each other, "What man is he who will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead."

The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "Therefore we have turned again to you now, that you may go with us, and fight with the children of Ammon; and you shall be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead."

The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "The LORD shall be witness between us; surely according to your word so will we do."

Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, "Please let us pass through your land to our land.'

Won't you possess that which Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whoever the LORD our God has driven out from before us, we will possess.

She said to him, "My father, since you have given your word to the LORD; do to me as you promised, because the LORD has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, even on the children of Ammon."

The men of Ephraim were gathered together, and passed northward; and they said to Jephthah, "Why did you pass over to fight against the children of Ammon, and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house on you with fire."

There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and did not bear.

Then Manoah pleaded with the LORD, and said, "Oh, Lord, please let the man of God whom you did send come again to us, and teach us what we shall do to the child who shall be born."

God listened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field: but Manoah, her husband, wasn't with her.

Manoah said, "Now let your words happen. How shall the child be raised and what is he to do?"

She may not eat of anything that comes of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. All that I have commanded her she is to observe."

Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, "What is your name, that when your words come true we may honor you?"

And the angel of the LORD said to him, "Why do you ask for my name? It is incomprehensible."

So Manoah took the young goat and a grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the LORD, who works wonders. Then the angel did a wonderful thing as Manoah and his wife looked on.

But his wife said to him, "If the LORD meant to kill us, he wouldn't have received a burnt offering and a grain offering from us, neither would he have shown us all these things, nor would he have spoken to us now like this."

He came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, "I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore get her for me as wife."

Then his father and his mother said to him, "Is there not a woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" And Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, for she is the right one for me."

And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and he tore him as he would have torn a young goat. And he had nothing in his hand, but he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.

He took it into his hands, and went on, eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother, and gave to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the body of the lion.

And it happened on the fourthth day, that they said to Samson's wife, "Entice your husband, that he may tell us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you called us to impoverish us? Is it not so?"

The men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" He said to them, "If you hadn't plowed with my heifer, you wouldn't have found out my riddle."

Her father said, "I most certainly thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn't her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Please take her, instead."

The men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against us?" They said, "We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he has done to us."

Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?" He said to them, "As they did to me, so have I done to them."

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him: and the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands.

And God split the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out of it. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: therefore its name was called En Hakore, which is in Lehi, to this day.

The Gazites were told, "Samson is here." They surrounded him, and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city, and were quiet all night, saying, "Wait until morning light, then we will kill him."

Samson stayed in bed until midnight, and arose at midnight, and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is overlooking Hebron.

It came to pass afterward, that he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.

Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man."

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.

He said to her, "If they only bind me with new ropes with which no work has been done, then shall I become weak, and be as another man."

She said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies."

She said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." He awoke out of his sleep, and said, "I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free." But he didn't know that the LORD had departed from him.

When the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said, "Our god has delivered our enemy and the destroyer of our country, who has slain many of us, into our hand."

It happened, when their hearts were merry, that they said, "Call for Samson, that he may entertain us." They called for Samson out of the prison; and he performed before them. They set him between the pillars;

There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah.

He said to his mother, "The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it." His mother said, "Blessed be my son of the LORD."

The man departed out of the city, out of Bethlehem Judah, to live where he could find a place, and he came to the hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah, as he traveled.

The Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was to him as one of his sons.

Then Micah said, "Now I know that the LORD will do good to me, seeing I have a Levite as my priest."

When they were by the house of Micah, they knew the voice of the young man the Levite; and they turned in that direction, and said to him, "Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? And what is your business here?"

They said, "Arise, and let us go up against them; for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. Will you do nothing? Do not hesitate to go and to enter in to possess the land.

When you go, you shall come to a secure people, and the land is large; for God has given it into your hand, a place where there is no want of anything that is on the earth."

They went up, and encamped in Kiriath Jearim, in Judah. Therefore they called that place Mahaneh Dan to this day; behold, it is behind Kiriath Jearim.

Then the five men who went to spy out the country of Laish answered, and said to their brothers, "Do you know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, and an engraved image, and a molten image? Now therefore consider what you have to do."

They said to him, "Hold your peace, lay your hand on your mouth, and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?"

The children of Dan said to him, "Do not let your voice be heard among us, or angry men will attack you, and you lose your life, with the lives of your household."

But the man wouldn't stay that night, but he rose up and departed, and went toward Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). And there were with him a couple of saddled donkeys, and his concubine was also with him.

When they were by Jebus, the day was almost gone, and the servant said to his master, "Please come and let us stop at this city of the Jebusites, and spend the night in it."

His master said to him, "We won't go into the city of a foreigner that is not of the children of Israel, but we will pass over to Gibeah."

He said to his servant, "Come and let us try to reach one of those places and we will spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah."

He said to him, "We are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the farther side of the hill country of Ephraim. I am from there, and I went to Bethlehem in Judah. I am going to the house of the LORD; and there is no man who will take me into his home.

Yet there is both straw and feed for our donkeys, and there is bread and wine also for me, and for your female servant, and for the young man who is with your servants. There is no lack of anything."

As they were enjoying themselves, behold, the men of the city, some wicked men of the city surrounded the house, beating at the door. And they spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, "Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may have sex with him."

Behold, here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. I will bring them out now. Ravish them and do with them what seems good to you; but do not do any such a disgraceful thing to this man."

He said to her, "Get up, and let us go." But no one answered. Then he took her up on the donkey; and the man rose up, and went to his place.

Then all the children of Israel went out, and the congregation was assembled as one man, from Dan even to Beersheba, with the land of Gilead, to the LORD at Mizpah.

(Now the children of Benjamin heard that the children of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.) The children of Israel said, "Tell us, how did this wickedness happen?"

And the leaders of Gibeah rose against me, and surrounded the house at night. They intended to kill me, and they raped my concubine, and she is dead.

All the people arose as one man, saying, "None of us will go to his tent, neither will any of us return to his house.

But now this is the thing which we will do to Gibeah: we will go up against it by lot;

So all the men of Israel gathered against the city, united as one man.

The tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, "What wickedness is this that has happened among you?

The children of Israel arose, and went up to Bethel, and asked counsel of God; and they said, "Who shall go up for us first to battle against the children of Benjamin?" The LORD said, "Judah first."

The children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day, and set themselves in array against Gibeah, as at other times.

The children of Benjamin went out against the people, and were drawn away from the city; and they began to strike and kill some of the people, as at other times, on the highways, of which one goes up to Bethel, and the other to Gibeah, in the field, about thirty men of Israel.

The children of Benjamin said, "They are defeated before us, as previously." But the children of Israel said, "Let us flee, and draw them away from the city to the highways."

The men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; for they said, "Surely they are defeated before us, as in the first battle."

Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying, "There shall not any of us give his daughter to Benjamin as wife."

The children of Israel said, "Who is there among all the tribes of Israel who did not come up in the assembly to the LORD?" For they had made a great oath concerning anyone who did not come up to the LORD to Mizpah, saying, "He shall surely be put to death."

The children of Israel grieved for Benjamin their brother, and said, "There is one tribe cut off from Israel this day.

They said, "What one is there of the tribes of Israel who did not come up to the LORD to Mizpah?" Behold, no one came to the camp from Jabesh Gilead to the assembly.

This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman who has slept with a man."

They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man; and they brought them to the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

However we may not give them wives of our daughters, for the children of Israel had sworn, saying, 'Cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin.'"

They said, "Behold, there is a feast of the LORD from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah."

It shall be, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we will say to them, 'Grant them graciously to us, because we didn't take wives for each man in battle, neither did you give them to them, otherwise you would now be guilty.'"

Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to her mother's house: the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead, and with me.

So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. It happened, when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they asked, "Is this Naomi?"

Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, "Let me now go to the field, and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor." She said to her, "Go, my daughter."

Then Boaz said to his servant who was set over the reapers, "Whose young lady is this?"

The servant who was set over the reapers answered, "It is the Moabite lady who came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab.