But Ja'el the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, till it went down into the ground, as he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died.

And behold, as Barak pursued Sis'era, Ja'el went out to meet him, and said to him, "Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking." So he went in to her tent; and there lay Sis'era dead, with the tent peg in his temple.

"Hear, O kings; give ear, O princes; to the LORD I will sing, I will make melody to the LORD, the God of Israel.

Why did you tarry among the sheepfolds, to hear the piping for the flocks? Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.

She put her hand to the tent peg and her right hand to the workmen's mallet; she struck Sis'era a blow, she crushed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple.

He sank, he fell, he lay still at her feet; at her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell dead.

Her wisest ladies make answer, nay, she gives answer to herself,

Do not depart from here, I pray thee, until I come to thee, and bring out my present, and set it before thee." And he said, "I will stay till you return."

and build an altar to the LORD your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order; then take the second bull, and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Ashe'rah which you shall cut down."

and you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp." Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outposts of the armed men that were in the camp.

Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

And when he saw her, he rent his clothes, and said, "Alas, my daughter! you have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me; for I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow."

And she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me; let me alone two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions."

And he said, "Go." And he sent her away for two months; and she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.

And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had made. She had never known a man. And it became a custom in Israel

And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, "Behold, you are barren and have no children; but you shall conceive and bear a son.

Then the woman came and told her husband, "A man of God came to me, and his countenance was like the countenance of the angel of God, very terrible; I did not ask him whence he was, and he did not tell me his name;

And God listened to the voice of Mano'ah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but Mano'ah her husband was not with her.

And the woman ran in haste and told her husband, "Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me."

And the angel of the LORD said to Mano'ah, "Of all that I said to the woman let her beware.

She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe."

Then he came up, and told his father and mother, "I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah; now get her for me as my wife."

But his father and mother said to him, "Is there not a woman among the daughters of your kinsmen, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me; for she pleases me well."

And after a while he returned to take her; and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey.

but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments." And they said to him, "Put your riddle, that we may hear it."

On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, "Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?"

And Samson's wife wept before him, and said, "You only hate me, you do not love me; you have put a riddle to my countrymen, and you have not told me what it is." And he said to her, "Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?"

She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted; and on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her countrymen.

After a while, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a kid; and he said, "I will go in to my wife in the chamber." But her father would not allow him to go in.

And her father said, "I really thought that you utterly hated her; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Pray take her instead."

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

Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a harlot, and he went in to her.

The Gazites were told, "Samson has come here," and they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, "Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him."

And the lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, "Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to subdue him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."

And Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings which have not been dried, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man."

Then the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.

And he said to her, "If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man."

And Deli'lah said to Samson, "Until now you have mocked me, and told me lies; tell me how you might be bound." And he said to her, "If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and make it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man."

And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death.

And he told her all his mind, and said to her, "A razor has never come upon my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I be shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man."

When Deli'lah saw that he had told her all his mind, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up this once, for he has told me all his mind." Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hands.

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.

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

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

And his concubine became angry with him, and she went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem in Judah, and was there some 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 when the man and his concubine and his servant rose up to depart, his father-in-law, the girl's father, said to him, "Behold, now the day has waned toward evening; pray tarry all night. Behold, the day draws to its close; lodge here and let your heart be merry; and tomorrow you shall arise early in the morning for your journey, and go home."

Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do with them what seems good to you; but against this man do not do so vile a thing."

But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine, and put her out to them; and they knew her, and abused her all night until the morning. And as the dawn began to break, they let her go.

And as morning appeared, the woman came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was, till it was light.

And her master rose up in the morning, and when he opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, behold, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold.

He said to her, "Get up, let us be going." But there was no answer. Then he put her upon the ass; and the man rose up and went away to his home.

And when he entered his house, he took a knife, and laying hold of his concubine he divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.

And I took my concubine and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel; for they have committed abomination and wantonness in Israel.

Behold, you people of Israel, all of you, give your advice and counsel here."

Among all these were seven hundred picked men who were left-handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair, and not miss.

And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons.

And Mahlon and Chilion died also, both of them; and the woman was left of her two children and of her husband.

And she arose, she and her daughters-in-law, and returned from the fields of Moab; for she had heard in the fields of Moab how that Jehovah had visited his people to give them bread.

Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she had been, and her two daughters-in-law with her; and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.

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

Jehovah grant you that ye may find rest, each in the house of her husband. And she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice and wept.

And they said to her, We will certainly return with thee to thy people.

And they lifted up their voice and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave to her.

And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back to her people and to her gods: return after thy sister-in-law.

And when she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, she left off speaking to her.

So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned out of the fields of Moab; and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley-harvest.

And Naomi had a relation of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz.

And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, Let me, I pray, go to the field and glean among the ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find favour. And she said to her, Go, my daughter.

and she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. And she came, and has continued from the morning until now: her sitting in the house has been little as yet.

And Boaz said to Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from here, but keep here with my maidens.

Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said to him, Why have I found favour in thine eyes, that thou shouldest regard me, seeing I am a foreigner?

And Boaz answered and said to her, It has fully been shewn me, all that thou hast done to thy mother-in-law since the death of thy husband; and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come to a people that thou hast not known heretofore.

And Boaz said to her at mealtime, Come hither and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers; and he reached her parched corn, and she ate and was sufficed, and reserved some.

And when she rose up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and ye shall not reproach her.

And ye shall also sometimes draw out for her some ears out of the handfuls, and leave them that she may glean, and rebuke her not.

And she took it up, and came into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned; and she brought forth and gave to her that which she had reserved after she was sufficed.

And her mother-in-law said to her, Where hast thou gleaned to-day? and where hast thou wrought? Blessed be he that did regard thee! And she told her mother-in-law with whom she had wrought, and said, The man's name with whom I wrought to-day is Boaz.

And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, Blessed be he of Jehovah, who has not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead! And Naomi said to her, The man is near of kin to us, one of those who have the right of our redemption.

And Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, It is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, that they meet thee not in any other field.

So she kept with the maidens of Boaz to glean, until the end of the barley-harvest and of the wheat-harvest. And she dwelt with her mother-in-law.

And Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?

And she said to her, All that thou sayest will I do.

And she went down to the floor, and did according to all that her mother-in-law had bidden her.

And he said, Bring the cloak that thou hast upon thee, and hold it. And she held it, and he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her; and he went into the city.

And she came to her mother-in-law; and she said, Who art thou, my daughter? And she told her all that the man had done to her.

And Boaz went up to the gate, and sat down there. And behold, he that had the right of redemption, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. And he said, Thou, such a one, turn aside, sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down.

And he took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, Sit down here. And they sat down.

And Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife; and he went in unto her, and Jehovah gave her conception, and she bore a son.

And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse to it.

And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi. And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

And it came to pass on the day that Elkanah sacrificed, he gave to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters portions;

but to Hannah he used to give a double portion, for he loved Hannah; but Jehovah had shut up her womb.

And her adversary provoked her much also, to make her fret, because Jehovah had shut up her womb.

And as he did so year by year, as often as she went up to the house of Jehovah, she provoked her thus; and she wept and did not eat.

And Elkanah her husband said to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? Am not I better to thee than ten sons?

And it came to pass as she continued praying before Jehovah, that Eli marked her mouth.

Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; and Eli thought she was drunken.

And Eli said to her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.

And she said, Let thy bondwoman find grace in thy sight. And the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more as before.