Israel worshiped the Lord throughout Joshua's lifetime and as long as the elderly men who outlived him remained alive. These men had experienced firsthand everything the Lord had done for Israel.

Caleb said, "To the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher I will give my daughter Acsah as a wife."

When Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, captured it, Caleb gave him his daughter Acsah as a wife.

One time Acsah came and charmed her father so she could ask him for some land. When she got down from her donkey, Caleb said to her, "What would you like?"

Caleb received Hebron, just as Moses had promised. He drove out the three Anakites.

The people worshiped the Lord throughout Joshua's lifetime and as long as the elderly men who outlived him remained alive. These men had witnessed all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.

Whenever they went out to fight, the Lord did them harm, just as he had warned and solemnly vowed he would do. They suffered greatly.

Joshua left those nations to test Israel. I wanted to see whether or not the people would carefully walk in the path marked out by the Lord, as their ancestors were careful to do."

They took the Canaanites' daughters as wives and gave their daughters to the Canaanites; they worshiped their gods as well.

As Ehud went out into the vestibule, he closed the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

Barak summoned men from Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh. Ten thousand men followed him; Deborah went up with him as well.

Warriors were scarce, they were scarce in Israel, until you arose, Deborah, until you arose as a motherly protector in Israel.

Then the survivors came down to the mighty ones; the Lord's people came down to me as warriors.

Why do you remain among the sheepfolds, listening to the shepherds playing their pipes for their flocks? As for the clans of Reuben -- there was intense searching of heart.

Gilead stayed put beyond the Jordan River. As for Dan -- why did he seek temporary employment in the shipyards? Asher remained on the seacoast, he stayed by his harbors.

Kings came, they fought; the kings of Canaan fought, at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo, but they took no silver as plunder.

The Midianites overwhelmed Israel. Because of Midian the Israelites made shelters for themselves in the hills, as well as caves and strongholds.

When they invaded with their cattle and tents, they were as thick as locusts. Neither they nor their camels could be counted. They came to devour the land.

Gideon said to him, "If you really are pleased with me, then give me a sign as proof that it is really you speaking with me.

God's messenger said to him, "Put the meat and unleavened bread on this rock, and pour out the broth." Gideon did as instructed.

That night the Lord said to him, "Take the bull from your father's herd, as well as a second bull, one that is seven years old. Pull down your father's Baal altar and cut down the nearby Asherah pole.

Then build an altar for the Lord your God on the top of this stronghold according to the proper pattern. Take the second bull and offer it as a burnt sacrifice on the wood from the Asherah pole that you cut down."

So Gideon took ten of his servants and did just as the Lord had told him. He was too afraid of his father's family and the men of the city to do it in broad daylight, so he waited until nighttime.

He sent messengers throughout Manasseh and summoned them to follow him as well. He also sent messengers throughout Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet him.

Gideon said to God, "If you really intend to use me to deliver Israel, as you promised, then give me a sign as proof.

Look, I am putting a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece, and the ground around it is dry, then I will be sure that you will use me to deliver Israel, as you promised."

The Lord did as he asked. When he got up the next morning, he squeezed the fleece, and enough dew dripped from it to fill a bowl.

Gideon said to God, "Please do not get angry at me, when I ask for just one more sign. Please allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make only the fleece dry, while the ground around it is covered with dew."

That night God did as he asked. Only the fleece was dry and the ground around it was covered with dew.

So he brought the men down to the water. Then the Lord said to Gideon, "Separate those who lap the water as a dog laps from those who kneel to drink."

Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people from the east covered the valley like a swarm of locusts. Their camels could not be counted; they were as innumerable as the sand on the seashore.

He said to them, "Watch me and do as I do. Watch closely! I am going to the edge of the camp. Do as I do!

They stood in order all around the camp. The whole army ran away; they shouted as they scrambled away.

He said, "They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. I swear, as surely as the Lord is alive, if you had let them live, I would not kill you."

They paid him seventy silver shekels out of the temple of Baal-Berith. Abimelech then used the silver to hire some lawless, dangerous men as his followers.

The thornbush said to the trees, 'If you really want to choose me as your king, then come along, find safety under my branches! Otherwise may fire blaze from the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!'

There was a fortified tower in the center of the city, so all the men and women, as well as the city's leaders, ran into it and locked the entrance. Then they went up to the roof of the tower.

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord's sight. They worshiped the Baals and the Ashtars, as well as the gods of Syria, Sidon, Moab, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. They abandoned the Lord and did not worship him.

But the Israelites said to the Lord, "We have sinned. You do to us as you see fit, but deliver us today!"

The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "The Lord will judge any grievance you have against us, if we do not do as you say."

The Ammonite king said to Jephthah's messengers, "Because Israel stole my land when they came up from Egypt -- from the Arnon River in the south to the Jabbok River in the north, and as far west as the Jordan. Now return it peaceably!"

When they left Egypt, Israel traveled through the desert as far as the Red Sea and then came to Kadesh.

then whoever is the first to come through the doors of my house to meet me when I return safely from fighting the Ammonites -- he will belong to the Lord and I will offer him up as a burnt sacrifice."

He defeated them from Aroer all the way to Minnith -- twenty cities in all, even as far as Abel Keramim! He wiped them out! The Israelites humiliated the Ammonites.

She said to him, "My father, since you made an oath to the Lord, do to me as you promised. After all, the Lord vindicated you before your enemies, the Ammonites."

He said, "You may go." He permitted her to leave for two months. She went with her friends and mourned her virginity as she walked through the hills.

After two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She died a virgin. Her tragic death gave rise to a custom in Israel.

He had thirty sons. He arranged for thirty of his daughters to be married outside his extended family, and he arranged for thirty young women to be brought from outside as wives for his sons. Ibzan led Israel for seven years;

The woman went and said to her husband, "A man sent from God came to me! He looked like God's angelic messenger -- he was very awesome. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name.

The Lord's messenger said to him, "You should not ask me my name, because you cannot comprehend it."

Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord. The Lord's messenger did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched.

As the flame went up from the altar toward the sky, the Lord's messenger went up in it while Manoah and his wife watched. They fell facedown to the ground.

The Lord's spirit empowered him and he tore the lion in two with his bare hands as easily as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to see the lion's remains. He saw a swarm of bees in the lion's carcass, as well as some honey.

He scooped it up with his hands and ate it as he walked along. When he returned to his father and mother, he offered them some and they ate it. But he did not tell them he had scooped the honey out of the lion's carcass.

The Lord's spirit empowered him. He went down to Ashkelon and murdered thirty men. He took their clothes and gave them to the men who had solved the riddle. He was furious as he went back home.

Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. He said to her father, "I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!" But her father would not let him enter.

He lit the torches and set the jackals loose in the Philistines' standing grain. He burned up the grain heaps and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

When he arrived in Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they approached him. But the Lord's spirit empowered him. The ropes around his arms were like flax dissolving in fire, and they melted away from his hands.

Samson spent half the night with the prostitute; then he got up in the middle of the night and left. He grabbed the doors of the city gate, as well as the two posts, and pulled them right off, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of a hill east of Hebron.

They hid in the bedroom and then she said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. The secret of his strength was not discovered.

So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" (The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) But he tore the ropes from his arms as if they were a piece of thread.

She said, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He woke up and thought, "I will do as I did before and shake myself free." But he did not realize that the Lord had left him.

Now this man Micah owned a shrine. He made an ephod and some personal idols and hired one of his sons to serve as a priest.

Micah said, "Now I know God will make me rich, because I have this Levite as my priest."

As they approached Micah's house, they recognized the accent of the young Levite. So they stopped there and said to him, "Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?"

He said, "You stole my gods that I made, as well as this priest, and then went away. What do I have left? How can you have the audacity to say to me, 'What do you want?'"

Now the Danites took what Micah had made, as well as his priest, and came to Laish, where the people were undisturbed and unsuspecting. They struck them down with the sword and burned the city.

The Danites worshiped the carved image. Jonathan, descendant of Gershom, son of Moses, and his descendants served as priests for the tribe of Dan until the time of the exile.

But the man did not want to stay another night. He left and traveled as far as Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). He had with him a pair of saddled donkeys and his concubine.

Now this is what we will do to Gibeah: We will attack the city as the lot dictates.

So all the men of Israel gathered together at the city as allies.

The Israelites attacked the Benjaminites the next day; they took their positions against Gibeah just as they had done before.

The Benjaminites attacked the army, leaving the city unguarded. They began to strike down their enemy just as they had done before. On the main roads (one leads to Bethel, the other to Gibeah) and in the field, they struck down about thirty Israelites.

Then the Benjaminites said, "They are defeated just as before." But the Israelites said, "Let's retreat and lure them away from the city into the main roads."

the Israelites counterattacked. Benjamin had begun to strike down the Israelites; they struck down about thirty men. They said, "There's no doubt about it! They are totally defeated as in the earlier battle."

They retreated before the Israelites, taking the road to the wilderness. But the battle overtook them as men from the surrounding cities struck them down.

How can we find wives for those who are left? After all, we took an oath in the Lord's name not to give them our daughters as wives."

Do this: exterminate every male, as well as every woman who has had sexual relations with a male. But spare the lives of any virgins." So they did as instructed.

The Benjaminites did as instructed. They abducted two hundred of the dancing girls to be their wives. They went home to their own territory, rebuilt their cities, and settled down.

During the time of the judges there was a famine in the land of Judah. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah went to live as a resident foreigner in the region of Moab, along with his wife and two sons.

Then Naomi's two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, also died. So the woman was left all alone -- bereaved of her two children as well as her husband!

Now as she and her two daughters-in-law began to leave the place where she had been living to return to the land of Judah,

Boaz replied to her, "I have been given a full report of all that you have done for your mother-in-law following the death of your husband -- how you left your father and your mother, as well as your homeland, and came to live among people you did not know previously.

So Ruth worked beside Boaz's female servants, gathering grain until the end of the barley harvest as well as the wheat harvest. After that she stayed home with her mother-in-law.

Remain here tonight. Then in the morning, if he agrees to marry you, fine, let him do so. But if he does not want to do so, I promise, as surely as the Lord lives, to marry you. Sleep here until morning."

Then he said, "Hold out the shawl you are wearing and grip it tightly." As she held it tightly, he measured out about sixty pounds of barley into the shawl and put it on her shoulders. Then he went into town,

I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, as my wife to raise up a descendant who will inherit his property so the name of the deceased might not disappear from among his relatives and from his village. You are witnesses today."

Year after year this man would go up from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh. It was there that the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, served as the Lord's priests.

She was very upset as she prayed to the Lord, and she was weeping uncontrollably.

As she continued praying to the Lord, Eli was watching her mouth.

She said, "Just as surely as you are alive, my lord, I am the woman who previously stood here with you in order to pray to the Lord.

He lifts the weak from the dust; he raises the poor from the ash heap to seat them with princes and to bestow on them an honored position. The foundations of the earth belong to the Lord, and he has placed the world on them.

and the lamp of God had not yet been extinguished. Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord as well; the ark of God was also there.

Then the Lord came and stood nearby, calling as he had previously done, "Samuel! Samuel!" Samuel replied, "Speak, for your servant is listening!"

All Israel from Dan to Beer Sheba realized that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord.

The Philistines arranged their forces to fight Israel. As the battle spread out, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men in the battle line in the field.

When he arrived in Shiloh, Eli was sitting in his chair watching by the side of the road, for he was very worried about the ark of God. As the man entered the city to give his report, the whole city cried out.

As she was dying, the women who were there with her said, "Don't be afraid! You have given birth to a son!" But she did not reply or pay any attention.

But after it had been moved the Lord attacked that city as well, causing a great deal of panic. He struck all the people of that city with sores.