This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Issachar by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Asher by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Naphtali by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

This is the heritage of the tribe of the children of Dan by their families, these towns with their unwalled places.

You have now been with your brothers for a long time; till this day you have been doing the orders of the Lord your God.

Then all the meeting of the children of Israel, hearing this, came together at Shiloh to go up against them to war.

This is what all the meeting of the people of the Lord has said, What is this wrong which you have done against the God of Israel, turning back this day from the Lord and building an altar for yourselves, and being false to the Lord?

Was not the sin of Baal-peor great enough, from which we are not clear even to this day, though punishment came on the people of the Lord,

That we have made ourselves an altar, being false to the Lord, keep us not safe from death this day; and if for the purpose of offering burned offerings on it and meal offerings, or peace-offerings, let the Lord himself send punishment for it;

And if we have not, in fact, done this designedly and with purpose, having in our minds the fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?

For we said to ourselves, If they say this to us or to future generations, then we will say, See this copy of the Lord's altar which our fathers made, not for burned offerings or offerings of beasts, but for a witness between us and you.

Never let it be said that we were false to the Lord, turning back this day from him and building an altar for burned offerings and meal offerings and offerings of beasts, in addition to the altar of the Lord our God which is before his House.

And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, said to the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh, Now we are certain that the Lord is among us, because you have not done this wrong against the Lord: and you have kept us from falling into the hands of the Lord.

And the children of Israel were pleased about this; and they gave praise to God, and had no more thought of going to war against the children of Reuben and the children of Gad for the destruction of their land.

But be true to the Lord your God as you have been till this day.

For the Lord has sent out from before you nations great and strong: and they have all given way before you till this day.

Then you may be certain that the Lord your God will not go on driving these nations out from before you; but they will become a danger and a cause of sin to you, a whip for your sides and thorns in your eyes, till you are cut off from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

And if it seems evil to you to be the servants of the Lord, make the decision this day whose servants you will be: of the gods whose servants your fathers were across the River, or of the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living: but I and my house will be the servants of the Lord.

And Joshua said to all the people, See now, this stone is to be a witness against us; for all the words of the Lord have been said to us in its hearing: so it will be a witness against you if you are false to the Lord your God.

And he went into the land of the Hittites, building a town there and naming it Luz: which is its name to this day.

And you are to make no agreement with the people of this land; you are to see that their altars are broken down: but you have not given ear to my voice: what have you done?

And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he said, Because this nation has not been true to my agreement which I made with their fathers, and has not given ear to my voice;

From now on I will not go on driving out from before them any of the nations which at the death of Joshua were still living in this land;

At that time Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam, made this song, saying:

Are they not getting, are they not parting the goods among them: a young girl or two to every man; and to Sisera robes of coloured needlework, worked in fair colours on this side and on that, for the neck of the queen?

Then Gideon said to him, O my lord, if the Lord is with us why has all this come on us? And where are all his works of power, of which our fathers have given us word, saying, Did not the Lord take us out of Egypt? But now he has given us up, handing us over to the power of Midian.

Then Gideon made an altar there to the Lord, and gave it the name Yahweh-shalom; to this day it is in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Make an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this rock, in the ordered way and take the ox and make a burned offering with the wood of the holy tree which has been cut down.

And they said to one another, Who has done this thing? And after searching with care, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash, has done this thing.

Then Gideon said to God, Do not be moved to wrath against me if I say only this: let me make one more test with the wool; let the wool now be dry, while the earth is covered with dew.

And his friend in answer said, This is certainly the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, the men of Israel: into their hands God has given up all the army of Midian.

God has given into your hands the chiefs of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; what have I been able to do in comparison with you? And when he said this, their feeling about him became kinder.

Then Gideon said, Because of this, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hands, I will have you stretched on a bed of thorns of the waste land and on sharp stems, and have you crushed as grain is crushed on a grain-floor.

So he said to the men of Penuel, When I come back in peace, I will have this tower broken down.

So his mother's family said all this about him in the ears of all the townsmen of Shechem: and their hearts were turned to Abimelech, for they said, He is our brother.

And you have gone against my father's family this day, and have put to death his sons, even seventy men on one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his servant-wife, king over the townsmen of Shechem because he is your brother;)

If then you have done what is true and upright to Jerubbaal and his family this day, may you have joy in Abimelech, and may he have joy in you;

And the townsmen of Shechem put secret watchers on the tops of the mountains, and they made attacks on all who went by on the road and took their goods; and word of this came to 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.

Then Zebul said to him, Now where is your loud talk when you said, Who is Abimelech that we are to be his servants? Is this not the people whom you were rating so low? Go out now, and make war on them.

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 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.

But, for all this, you have given me up and have been servants to other gods: so I will be your saviour no longer.

And the children of Israel said to the Lord, We are sinners; do to us whatever seems good to you: only give us salvation this day.

And said to him, This is the word of Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the children of Ammon;

So I have done no wrong against you, but you are doing wrong to me in fighting against me: may the Lord, who is Judge this day, be judge between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.

Then she said to her father, Only do this for me: let me have two months to go away into the mountains with my friends, weeping for my sad fate.

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 Manoah got up and went after his wife, and came up to the man and said to him, Are you the man who was talking to this woman? And he said, I am.

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.

Then Samson said to them, This time I will give payment in full to the Philistines, for I am going to do them great evil.

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.

And Samson said to them, If you go on like this, truly I will take my full payment from you; and that will be the end of it.

Then three thousand of the men of Judah went down to the crack of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, Is it not clear to you that the Philistines are our rulers? What is this you have done to us? And he said to them, I only did to them as they did to me.

After this, he was in great need of water, and crying out to the Lord, he said, You have given this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and now need of water will be my death; and I will be given into the hands of this people who are without circumcision.

Then God made a crack in the hollow rock in Lehi and water came out of it; and after drinking, his spirit came back to him and he was strong again; so that place was named En-hakkore; it is in Lehi to this day.

Now after this, he was in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, named Delilah.

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 Samson, crying out to the Lord, said, O Lord God, do have me now in mind, and do make me strong only this once, O God, so that I may take one last payment from the Philistines for my two eyes.

And he said to his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver which were taken from you, about which you took an oath and said in my hearing, I have given this silver to the Lord from my hand for myself, to make a pictured image and a metal image: see, I have the silver, for I took it: so now I will give it back to you. And his mother said, May the blessing of the Lord be on my son.

When they were near the house of Micah, hearing a voice which was not strange to them, that of the young Levite, they went out of their road to his place, and said to him, How did you come here? and what are you doing in this place? and why are you here?

And he said to them, This is what Micah did for me, and he gave me payment and I became his priest.

And they went up and put up their tents in Kiriath-jearim in Judah: so that place is named Mahaneh-dan to this day. It is to the west of Kiriath-jearim.

When they got near Jebus the day was far gone; and the servant said to his master, Now let us go from our road into this town of the Jebusites and take our night's rest there.

So the man, the master of the house, went out to them, and said, No, my brothers, do not this evil thing; this man has come into my house, and you are not to do him this wrong.

See, here is my daughter, a virgin, and his servant-wife: I will send them out for you to take them and do with them whatever you will. But do no such thing of shame to this man.

And he gave orders to the men whom he sent, saying, This is what you are to say to all the men of Israel, Has ever an act like this been done from the day when the children of Israel came out of Egypt to this day? Give thought to it, turning it over in your minds, and give your opinion of it.

(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.

But this is what we will do to Gibeah: we will go up against it by the decision of the Lord;

And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin saying, What is this evil which has been done among you?

And they said, O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this fate come on Israel, that today one tribe has been cut off from Israel?

And this is what you are to do: every male, and every woman who has had sex relations with a man, you are to put to the curse, but you are to keep safe the virgins. And they did so.

So the men of Benjamin did this, and got wives for themselves for every one of their number, taking them away by force from the dance; then they went back to their heritage, building up their towns and living in them.

So the two of them went on till they came to Beth-lehem. And when they came to Beth-lehem all the town was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?

Then Boaz said to his servant who was in authority over the cutters, Whose girl is this?

And he said, May the Lord give you his blessing, my daughter: even better than what you did at the first is this last kind act you have done, in not going after young men, with or without wealth.

Then she said, Do nothing now, my daughter, till you see what will come of this; for the man will take no rest till he has put this thing through.

Then Boaz said, On the day when you take this field, you will have to take with it Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, so that you may keep the name of the dead living in his heritage.

Now, in earlier times this was the way in Israel when property was taken over by a near relation, or when there was a change of owner. To make the exchange certain one man took off his shoe and gave it to the other; and this was a witness in Israel.

And, further, I have taken Ruth, the Moabitess, who was the wife of Mahlon, to be my wife, to keep the name of the dead man living in his heritage, so that his name may not be cut off from among his countrymen, and from the memory of his town: you are witnesses this day.

And all the people who were in the public place, and the responsible men, said, We are witnesses. May the Lord make this woman, who is about to come into your house, like Rachel and Leah, which two were the builders of the house of Israel: and may you have wealth in Ephrathah, and be great in Beth-lehem;

May your family be like the family of Perez, the son whom Tamar gave to Judah, from the offspring which the Lord may give you by this young woman.

And the women said to Naomi, A blessing on the Lord, who has not let you be this day without a near relation, and may his name be great in Israel.

Now this man went up from his town every year to give worship and to make offerings to the Lord of armies in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there.

My prayer was for this child; and the Lord has given him to me in answer to my request:

And the priests' way with the people was this: when any man made an offering, the priest's servant came while the flesh was being cooked, having in his hand a meat-hook with three teeth;

This he put into the pot, and everything which came up on the hook the priest took for himself. This they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

And more than this, before the fat was burned, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was making the offering, Give me some of the flesh to be cooked for the priest; he has no taste for meat cooked in water, but would have you give it uncooked.

And every year Eli gave Elkanah and his wife a blessing, saying, May the Lord give you offspring by this woman in exchange for the child you have given to the Lord. And they went back to their house.

And he said to them, Why are you doing such things? for from all this people I get accounts of your evil ways.

For this reason the Lord God of Israel has said, Truly I did say that your family and your father's people would have their place before me for ever: but now the Lord says, Let it not be so; I will give honour to those by whom I am honoured, and those who have no respect for me will be of small value in my eyes.

And this will be the sign to you, which will come on Hophni and Phinehas, your sons; death will overtake them on the same day.

And the Philistines, hearing the noise of their cry, said, What is this great cry among the tents of the Hebrews? Then it became clear to them that the ark of the Lord had come to the tent-circle.

And Eli, hearing the noise and the cries, said, What is the reason of this outcry? And the man came quickly and gave the news to Eli.

So to this day no priest of Dagon, or any who come into Dagon's house, will put his foot on the doorstep of the house of Dagon in Ashdod.

If it goes by the land of Israel to Beth-shemesh, then this great evil is his work; but if not, then we may be certain that the evil was not his doing, but was the working of chance.

And the gold mice, one for every town of the Philistines, the property of the five lords, walled towns as well as country places: and the great stone where they put the ark of the Lord is still in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite to this day.

And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to keep his place before the Lord, this holy God? and to whom may he go from us?

As they have done from the first, from the day when I took them out of Egypt till this day, turning away from me and worshipping other gods, so now they are acting in the same way to you.

And he said, This is the sort of king who will be your ruler: he will take your sons and make them his servants, his horsemen, and drivers of his war-carriages, and they will go running before his war-carriages;