And he presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man.

And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that bare the present.

and he himself hath turned back from the graven images which are at Gilgal, and saith, 'A secret word I have unto thee, O king;' and he saith, 'Hush!' and go out from him do all those standing by him.

And Ehud came to him, as he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you." And he arose from his seat.

Ehud used his left hand to take the sword from his right thigh and then plunged it into Eglon's abdomen.

and the handle also went in after the blade; and the fat closed on the blade, for he didn't draw the sword out of his body; and it came out behind.

But Ehud gat him out at the back door, and put to the door after him, and locked it.

After he left, Eglon's attendants came to look, but the doors to the cool chamber were locked! So they said, "He must be relieving himself in the inner part of the cool chamber."

And they stay till confounded, and lo, he is not opening the doors of the upper chamber, and they take the key, and open, and lo, their lord is fallen to the earth -- dead.

Ehud escaped while they delayed, and passed beyond the sculptured stones, and escaped to Se-i'rah.

And it came to pass, when he was come, that he blew a trumpet in the mountain of Ephraim, and the children of Israel went down with him from the mount, and he before them.

And he said unto them, Follow after me: for the LORD hath delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hand. And they went down after him, and took the fords of Jordan toward Moab, and suffered not a man to pass over.

At that time they put about ten thousand men of Moab to the sword, every strong man and every man of war; not a man got away.

So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years.

After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed six hundred of the Philistines with an oxgoad; and he too delivered Israel.

And the sons of Israel add to do the evil thing in the eyes of Jehovah when Ehud is dead,

so the LORD turned them over to domination by King Jabin of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commanding officer of his army, lived in Harosheth-haggoyim.

Then the people of Israel cried to the LORD for help; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.

And Deborah, a woman, a prophetess, wife to Lapidoth, she judged Israel in that time.

And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.

She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abin'o-am from Kedesh in Naph'tali, and said to him, "The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you, 'Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking ten thousand from the tribe of Naph'tali and the tribe of Zeb'ulun.

And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.

Barak said to her, "If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go."

And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

And Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and he went up with ten thousand men at his feet: and Deborah went up with him.

Now Heber the Kenite, who was of the children of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent to the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.

And they shewed Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam was gone up to mount Tabor.

Sis'era called out all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the men who were with him, from Haro'sheth-ha-goiim to the river Kishon.

And Deborah said unto Barak, Up; for this is the day in which the LORD hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the LORD gone out before thee? So Barak went down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.

And Yahweh put to flight Sisera and all the chariots and all the host, with the edge of the sword, before Barak, - so Sisera alighted from his chariot, and fled on foot.

And Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Haro'sheth-ha-goiim, and all the army of Sis'era fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.

Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite: for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle.

And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.

And he said to her, "Stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, 'Is any one here?' say, No."

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 Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples.

So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel.

The power of the Israelites continued to increase against Jabin king of Canaan until they destroyed him.

Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying,

Because of the flowing hair of the fighters in Israel, because the people gave themselves freely, give praise to the Lord.

Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel.

"In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Ja'el, caravans ceased and travelers kept to the byways.

The warriors ceased; they failed to appear in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose; I arose [as] a mother in Israel.

When new gods were chosen, then war was in the gates. Was shield or spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel?

My heart goes out to the commanders of Israel who offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless the LORD.

Let them give thought to it, who go on white asses, and those who are walking on the road.

They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD, even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel: then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates.

Then him who is left of the honourable ones He caused to rule the people of Jehovah, He caused me to rule among the mighty.

the princes of Is'sachar came with Deb'orah, and Is'sachar faithful to Barak; into the valley they rushed forth at his heels. Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.

Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds, to hear the bleatings of the flocks? For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.

“Gilead remained beyond the Jordan;
And why did Dan live as an alien on ships?
Asher sat [still] on the seacoast,
And remained by its landings.
[These did not come to battle for God’s people.]

Zeb'ulun is a people that jeoparded their lives to the death; Naph'tali too, on the heights of the field.

"The kings came, they fought; then fought the kings of Canaan, at Ta'anach, by the waters of Megid'do; they got no spoils of silver.

The river Kishon took them violently away, stopping their flight, the river Kishon. Give praise, O my soul, to the strength of the Lord!

Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty.

She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.

He crumpled to the ground between her feet, where he fell down and collapsed. Between her feet he crumpled, Fallen dead!

Through the window she hath looked out -- Yea, she crieth out -- the mother of Sisera, Through the lattice: Wherefore is his chariot delaying to come? Wherefore tarried have the steps of his chariot?

Her wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned answer to herself,

Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two; to Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?

So do all Thine enemies perish, O Jehovah, And those loving Him are As the going out of the sun in its might!' and the land resteth forty years.

And the sons of Israel do the evil thing in the eyes of Jehovah, and Jehovah giveth them into the hand of Midian seven years,

Midian's control predominated throughout Israel, and because of Midian the Israelis went out to find temporary hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and fortified places.

And so it used to be, if Israel had sown, then came up Midian and Amalek and the sons of the east, yea came up against them,

They encamped against them and destroyed the produce of the land, even as far as Gaza. They left nothing for Israel to eat, as well as no sheep, ox or donkey.

For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.

And Israel was brought very low because of Mid'ian; and the people of Israel cried for help to the LORD.

And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD because of the Midianites,

the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel; and he said to them, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of bondage;

and I deliver you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all your oppressors, and I cast them out from your presence, and I give to you their land,

and I said to you, 'I am the LORD your God; you shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.' But you have not given heed to my voice."

And there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.

And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor."

And Gideon said to him, "Pray, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this befallen us? And where are all his wonderful deeds which our fathers recounted to us, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Mid'ian."

And the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Mid'ian; do not I send you?"

And he said to him, "Pray, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manas'seh, and I am the least in my family."

And the LORD said to him, "But I will be with you, and you shall smite the Mid'ianites as one man."

And he said to him, "If now I have found favor with thee, then show me a sign that it is thou who speakest with me.

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."

So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them.

And the angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them." And he did so.

And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face.

And the LORD said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.

Then Gideon built an altar there unto the LORD, and called it Jehovahshalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

And it came to pass the same night, that the LORD said unto him, Take thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it:

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."

Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the LORD had said unto him: and so it was, because he feared his father's household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night.

And the men of the city rose up early in the morning, and lo! the altar of Baal, had been overthrown, and, the sacred stem that was by it, had been cut down, and the second bullock had been caused to ascend upon the altar that had been built.

And they said one to another, Who hath done this thing? And when they inquired and asked, they said, Gideon the son of Joash hath done this thing.

Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son, that he may die: because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it.

And Joash said unto all that stood against him, Will ye plead for Baal? will ye save him? he that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning: if he be a god, let him plead for himself, because one hath cast down his altar.

Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal plead against him, because he hath thrown down his altar.

But the Spirit of the LORD took possession of Gideon; and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiez'rites were called out to follow him.

And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh; who also was gathered after him: and he sent messengers unto Asher, and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali; and they came up to meet them.

Then Gideon said to God, "If thou wilt deliver Israel by my hand, as thou hast said,

Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said.

And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.

And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.

And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.