And I gave you a land on which you had done no work, and towns not of your building, and you are now living in them; and your food comes from vine-gardens and olive-gardens not of your planting.

And Israel was true to the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the older men who were still living after Joshua's death, and had seen what the Lord had done for Israel.

And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had taken up from Egypt, they put in the earth in Shechem, in the property which Jacob had got from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred shekels: and they became the heritage of the children of Joseph.

Then the death of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, took place; and his body was put in the earth in the hill of Phinehas his son, which had been given to him in the hill-country of Ephraim.

But Adoni-zedek went in flight; and they went after him and overtook him, and had his thumbs and his great toes cut off.

And Adoni-zedek said, Seventy kings, whose thumbs and great toes had been cut off, got broken meat under my table: as I have done, so has God done to me in full. And they took him to Jerusalem, and he came to his end there.

Then the children of Judah made an attack on Jerusalem, and took it, burning down the town after they had put its people to the sword without mercy.

Now Hobab the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, had come up out of the town of palm-trees, with the children of Judah, into the waste land of Arad; and he went and was living among the Amalekites;

And the Lord was with Judah; and he took the hill-country for his heritage; but he was unable to make the people of the valley go out, for they had war-carriages of iron.

And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said; and he took the land of the three sons of Anak, driving them out from there.

And the people were true to the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the responsible men who were still living after the death of Joshua, and had seen all the great work of the Lord which he had done for Israel.

And in time death overtook all that generation; and another generation came after them, having no knowledge of the Lord or of the things which he had done for Israel.

And they gave up the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had taken them out of the land of Egypt, and went after other gods, the gods of the peoples round about them, worshipping them and moving the Lord to wrath.

Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had taken his oath it would be; and things became very hard for them.

But still they would not give ear to their judges, but went after other gods and gave them worship; quickly turning from the way in which their fathers had gone, keeping the orders of the Lord; but they did not do so.

Now these are the nations which the Lord kept in the land for the purpose of testing Israel by them, all those who had had no experience of all the wars of Canaan;

Only because of the generations of the children of Israel, for the purpose of teaching them war--only those who up till then had no experience of it;

For the purpose of testing Israel by them, to see if they would give ear to the orders of the Lord, which he had given to their fathers by the hand of Moses.

Then for forty years the land had peace, till the death of Othniel, the son of Kenaz.

Then the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes of the Lord; and the Lord made Eglon, king of Moab, strong against Israel, because they had done evil in the Lord's eyes.

And after giving the offering, he sent away the people who had come with the offering.

Now when he had gone, the king's servants came, and saw that the doors of the summer-house were locked; and they said, It may be that he is in his summer-house for a private purpose.

But Ehud had got away while they were waiting and had gone past the stone images and got away to Seirah.

And when he came there, he had a horn sounded in the hill-country of Ephraim, and all the children of Israel went down with him from the hill-country, and he at their head.

So Moab was broken that day under the hand of Israel. And for eighty years the land had peace.

Then the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord; for he had nine hundred iron war-carriages, and for twenty years he was very cruel to the children of Israel.

(And she had her seat under the palm-tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in the hill-country of Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her to be judged.)

Now Heber the Kenite, separating himself from the rest of the Kenites, from the children of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses, had put up his tent as far away as the oak-tree in Zaanannim, by Kedesh.

And word was given to Sisera that Barak, the son of Abinoam, had gone up to Mount Tabor.

They had no one to make arms, there were no more armed men in the towns; was there a body-cover or a spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel?

So may destruction come on all your haters, O Lord; but let your lovers be like the sun going out in his strength. And for forty years the land had peace.

Then Gideon went in and made ready a young goat, and with an ephah of meal he made unleavened cakes: he put the meat in a basket and the soup in which it had been cooked he put in a pot, and he took it out to him under the oak-tree and gave it to him there.

Then Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord had said to him; but fearing to do it by day, because of his father's people and the men of the town, he did it by night.

And the men of the town got up early in the morning, and they saw the altar of Baal broken down, and the holy tree which was by it cut down, and the ox offered on the altar which had been put up there.

When Gideon came there, a man was giving his friend an account of his dream, saying, See, I had a dream about a cake of barley bread which, falling into the tents of Midian, came on to the tent, overturning it so that it was stretched out flat on the earth.

So Gideon and the three hundred men who were with him came to the outer line of tents, at the start of the middle watch, when the watchmen had only then taken their stations; and the horns were sounded and the vessels broken.

So the three bands all gave a loud note on their horns, and when the vessels had been broken, they took the flaming branches in their left hands, and the horns in their right hands ready for blowing, crying out, For the Lord and for Gideon.

So he went up from there to Penuel and made the same request to the men of Penuel; but they gave him the same answer as the men of Succoth had given.

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor and their armies with them, about fifteen thousand men, those of all the army of the children of the east who were still living; for a hundred and twenty thousand of their swordsmen had been put to death.

And Gideon went up by the way used by the people living in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and made an attack on the army when they had no thought of danger.

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, They were my brothers, my mother's sons: by the life of the Lord, if you had kept them safe, I would not put you to death.

Then Gideon said to them, I have a request to make to you; let every man give me the ear-rings he has taken. (For they had gold ear-rings, 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.

So Midian was broken before the children of Israel and the Midianites never got back their strength. And the land had peace for forty years, in the days of Gideon.

Gideon had seventy sons, the offspring of his body; for he had a number of 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 did not keep in their minds the Lord their God, who had been their saviour from all their haters on every side;

And they were not kind to the house of Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon, in reward for all the good he had done to Israel.

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.

Now Zebul, the ruler of the town, hearing what Gaal, the son of Ebed, had said, was moved to wrath.

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 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.

In this way Abimelech was rewarded by God for the evil he had done to his father in putting his seventy brothers to death;

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, who went on thirty young asses; and they had thirty towns in the land of Gilead, which are named Havvoth-Jair to this day.

Then Jephthah came back to his house in Mizpah, and his daughter came out, meeting him on his way with music and with dances; she was his only child; he had no other sons or daughters.

And at the end of two months she went back to her father, who did with her as he had said in his oath: and she had never been touched by a man. So it became a rule in Israel,

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?

And the Gileadites took the crossing-places of Jordan against the Ephraimites; and when any of the men of Ephraim who had gone in flight said, let me go over; the men of Gilead said to him, Are you an Ephraimite? And if he said, No;

He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters whom he sent to other places, and he got thirty wives from other places for his sons. And he was judge of Israel for seven years.

He had forty sons and thirty sons' sons who went on seventy young asses; and he was judge of Israel for eight years.

Now there was a certain man of Zorah of the family of the Danites, and his name was Manoah; and his wife had never given birth to a child.

And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Though you keep me I will not take of your food; but if you will make a burned offering, let it be offered to the Lord. For it had not come into Manoah's mind that he was the angel of the Lord.

Now his father and mother had no knowledge that this was the purpose of the Lord, who had the destruction of the Philistines in mind. Now the Philistines at that time were ruling over Israel.

And the spirit of the Lord came on him with power, and, unarmed as he was, pulling the lion in two as one might do to a young goat, he put him to death; (but he said nothing to his father and mother of what he had done.)

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

And he took the honey in his hand, and went on, tasting it on the way; and when he came to his father and mother he gave some to them; but did not say that he had taken the honey from the body of the lion.

Then on the seventh day, before he went into the bride's room, the men of the town said to him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, If you had not been ploughing with my cow you would not have got the answer to my question.

And the spirit of the Lord came rushing on him, and he went down to Ashkelon and, attacking thirty men there, took their clothing from them, and gave it to the men who had given the answer to his hard question. Then, full of wrath, he went back to his father's house.

But Samson's wife was given to the friend who had been his best man.

And her father said, It seemed to me that you had only hate for her; so I gave her to your friend: but is not her younger sister fairer than she? so please take her in place of the other.

Then the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they said, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his friend. So the Philistines came up and had her and her father's house burned.

So the chiefs of the Philistines gave her seven new bow-cords which had never been made dry, and she had them tightly knotted round him.

Now she had men waiting secretly in the inner room; and she said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And the cords were broken by him as a twist of thread is broken when touched by a flame. So the secret of his strength did not come to light.

And when Delilah saw that he had let her see into his heart, she sent word to the chiefs of the Philistines saying, Come up this time, for he has let out all his heart to me. Then the chiefs of the Philistines came to her, with the money in their hands.

And she made him go to sleep on her knees; and she sent for a man and had his seven twists of hair cut off; and while it was being done he became feeble and his strength went from him.

Then she said, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And awaking from his sleep, he said, I will go out as at other times, shaking myself free. But he was not conscious that the Lord had gone from him.

But the growth of his hair was starting again after it had been cut off.

And Samson said, Let death overtake me with the Philistines. And he put out all his strength, and the house came down on the chiefs and on all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he sent to destruction by his death were more than all those on whom he had sent destruction in his life.

Then his brothers and his father's people came down and took him up and put his body to rest in the earth between Zorah and Eshtaol in the resting-place of Manoah his father. And he had been judge of Israel for twenty years.

And the man Micah had a house of gods; and he made an ephod and family gods and put one of his sons in the position of priest.

In those days there was no king in Israel, and in those days the Danites were looking for a heritage for themselves, to be their living-place; for up to that time no distribution of land had been made to them among the tribes of Israel.

Then the five men went on their way and came to Laish and saw the people who were there, living without thought of danger, like the Zidonians, quiet and safe; for they had everything on earth for their needs, and they were far from the Zidonians and had no business with Aram.

Then the five men who had gone to make a search through the country of Laish, said to their brothers, Have you knowledge that in these houses there is an ephod and family gods and a pictured image and a metal image? So now you see what to do.

Then the five men who had gone to make a search through the land, went in and took the pictured image and the ephod and the family gods and the metal image; and the priest was by the doorway with the six hundred armed men.

When they had gone some way from the house of Micah, the men from the houses near Micah's house came together and overtook the children of Dan,

And they took that which Micah had made, and his priest, and came to Laish, to a people living quietly and without thought of danger, and they put them to the sword without mercy, burning down their town.

And they had no saviour, because it was far from Zidon, and they had no business with Aram; and it was in the valley which is the property of Beth-rehob. And building up the town again they took it for their living-place.

And they gave the town the name of Dan, after Dan their father, who was the son of Israel: though the town had been named Laish at first.

And they put up for themselves the image which Micah had made, and it was there all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.

Then her husband got up and went after her, with the purpose of talking kindly to her, and taking her back with him; he had with him his young man and two asses: and she took him into her father's house, and her father, when he saw him, came forward to him with joy.

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.

So seating themselves they had food and drink, the two of them together; and the girl's father said to the man, If it is your pleasure, take your rest here tonight, and let your heart be glad.

Then early on the morning of the fifth day he got up to go away; but the girl's father said, Keep up your strength; so the two of them had a meal, and the man and his woman and his servant did not go till after the middle of the day.

But the man would not be kept there that night, and he got up and went away and came opposite to Jebus (which is Jerusalem); and he had with him the two asses, ready for travelling, and his woman.

And when he had come to his house, he got his knife, and took the woman, cutting her up bone by bone into twelve parts, which he sent through all Israel.

(Now the children of Benjamin had word that the children of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.) And the children of Israel said, Make clear how this evil thing took place.