So he said to him, If now I have grace in your eyes, then give me a sign that it is you who are talking to me.

Then the angel of the Lord put out the stick which was in his hand, touching the meat and the cakes with the end of it; and a flame came up out of the rock, burning up the meat and the cakes: and the angel of the Lord was seen no longer.

Then Gideon was certain that he was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, I am in fear, O Lord God! for I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.

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 the men of the town said to Joash, Make your son come out to be put to death, for pulling down the altar of Baal and cutting down the holy tree which was by it.

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.

Then Gideon, the son of Joash, went back from the fight:

Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, Where are the men whom you put to death at Tabor? And they gave answer, As you are, so were they; every one of them was like a king's son.

Then he said to Jether, his oldest son, Up! Put them to death. But the boy did not take out his sword, fearing because he was still a boy.

Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, Be our ruler, you and your son and your son's son after him; for you have been our saviour from the hands of Midian.

But Gideon said to them, I will not be a ruler over you, and my son will not be a ruler over you: it is the Lord who will be ruler over you.

And Gideon made an ephod from them and put it up in his town Ophrah; and all Israel went after it there and were false to the Lord; and it became a cause of sin to Gideon and his house.

And Jerubbaal, the son of Joash, went back to his house and was living there.

And the servant-wife he had in Shechem had a son by him, to whom he gave the name Abimelech.

And Gideon, the son of Joash, came to his end when he was very old, and his body was put in the resting-place of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Now Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal, went to Shechem to his mother's family, and said to them and to all the family of his mother's father,

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;)

Then Gaal, the son of Ebed, came with his brothers, and went over to Shechem; and the men of Shechem put their faith in him.

And Gaal, the son of Ebed, said, Who is Abimelech and who is Shechem, that we are to be his servants? Is it not right for the son of Jerubbaal and Zebul his captain to be servants to the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem? But why are we to be his servants?

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

And he sent to Abimelech at Arumah, saying, See, Gaal, the son of Ebed, and his brothers have come to Shechem, and they are working up the town against you.

And in the morning, when the sun is up, get up early and make a rush on the town; and when he and his people come out against you, do to them whatever you have a chance to do.

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.

Then Abimelech went up to Mount Zalmon, with all his people; and Abimelech took an axe in his hand and, cutting down branches of trees, took them and put them on his back. And he said to the people who were with him, Be quick and do as you have seen me do.

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.

Now after Abimelech, Tola, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, became the saviour of Israel; he was living in Shamir in the hill-country of Ephraim.

Then the children of Israel, crying out to the Lord, said, Great is our sin against you, for we have given up our God and have been servants to the Baals.

Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a great man of war; he was the son of a loose woman, and Gilead was his father.

And Gilead's wife gave birth to sons, and when her sons became men, they sent Jephthah away, saying, You have no part in the heritage of our father's house, for you are the son of another woman.

What! are you any better than Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever take up a cause against Israel or make war against them?

And after him, Abdon, the son of Hillel, the Pirathonite, was judge of Israel.

And Abdon, the son of Hillel, came to his death, and his body was put to rest in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill-country of the Amalekites.

And the angel of the Lord came to the woman, and said to her, See now! though you have never given birth to children, you will be with child and give birth to a son.

For you are with child and will give birth to a son; his hair is never to be cut, for the child is to be separate to God from his birth; and he will take up the work of freeing Israel from the hands of the Philistines.

But he said to me, You are with child and will give birth to a son; and now do not take any wine or strong drink or let anything unclean be your food; for the child will be separate to God from his birth to the day of his death.

So the woman, running quickly, gave her husband the news, saying, I have seen the man who came to me the other day.

But the angel of the Lord was seen no more by Manoah and his wife. Then it was clear to Manoah that he was the angel of the Lord.

And Manoah said to his wife, Death will certainly be our fate, for it is a god whom we have seen.

So the woman gave birth to a son, and gave him the name Samson; and he became a man and the blessing of the Lord was on him.

And when he came back he said to his father and mother, I have seen a woman in Timnah, of the daughters of the Philistines: get her now for me for my wife.

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 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.

And he gave back the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, and his mother said, I have made the silver holy to the Lord from me for my son, to make a pictured image and a metal image.

And they said, Up! and let us go against Laish; for we have seen the land, and it is very good: why are you doing nothing? Do not be slow to go in and take the land for your heritage.

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 the children of Dan put up the pictured image for themselves; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of the Danites till the day when the ark was taken prisoner.)

Now on the fourth day they got up early in the morning and he made ready to go away; but the girl's father said to his son-in-law, Take a little food to keep up your strength, and then go on your way.

So they went on their way; and the sun went down when they were near Gibeah in the land of Benjamin.

And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was in his place before it,) and said, Am I still to go on with the fight against the children of Benjamin my brother, or am I to give it up? And the Lord said, Go on; for tomorrow I will give him into your hands.

Now the sign fixed between the men of Israel and those making the surprise attack was that when they made a pillar of smoke go up from the town,

Then the sign went up out of the town in the pillar of smoke, and the Benjamites, turning back, saw all the town going up in smoke to heaven.

And they said, Which one of the tribes of Israel did not come up to Mizpah to the Lord? And it was seen that no one had come from Jabesh-gilead to the meeting.

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.

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and he went in to her, and the Lord made her with child and she gave birth to a son.

Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim, a Zuphite of the hill-country of Ephraim, named Elkanah; he was the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite:

Now the time came when Hannah, being with child, gave birth to a son; and she gave him the name Samuel, Because, she said, I made a prayer to the Lord for him.

And her husband Elkanah said to her, Do whatever seems right to you, but not till you have taken him from the breast; only may the Lord do as he has said. So the woman, waiting there, gave her son milk till he was old enough to be taken from the breast.

And the sin of these young men was very great before the Lord; for they gave no honour to the Lord's offerings.

If one man does wrong to another, God will be his judge: but if a man's sin is against the Lord, who will take up his cause? But they gave no attention to the voice of their father, for it was the Lord's purpose to send destruction on them.

And a man of God came to Eli and said to him, The Lord says, Did I let myself be seen by your father's people when they were in Egypt, servants in Pharaoh's house?

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 again the Lord said, Samuel. And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, Here am I; for you certainly said my name. But he said in answer, I said nothing, my son; go to your rest again.

And you are to say to him that I will send punishment on his family for ever, for the sin which he had knowledge of; because his sons have been cursing God and he had no control over them.

So I have made an oath to the family of Eli that no offering of meat or of meal which they may make will ever take away the sin of his family.

Then Eli said, Samuel, my son. And Samuel answering said, Here am I.

And the Lord was seen again in Shiloh; for the Lord gave to Samuel in Shiloh the revelation of his word.

And the Philistines, full of fear, said, God has come into their tents. And they said, Trouble is ours! for never before has such a thing been seen.

And the man said to Eli, I have come from the army and have come in flight today from the fight. And he said, How did it go, my son?

And when she was very near death the women who were with her said, Have no fear, for you have given birth to a son. But she made no answer and gave no attention to it.

And they said, If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it without an offering, but send him a sin-offering with it: then you will have peace again, and it will be clear to you why the weight of his hand has not been lifted from you.

Then they said, What sin-offering are we to send to him? And they said, Five gold images of the growths caused by your disease and five gold mice, one for every lord of the Philistines: for the same disease came on you and on your lords.

And put the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the gold images which you are sending as a sin-offering in a chest by its side; and send it away so that it may go.

And the five lords of the Philistines, having seen it, went back to Ekron the same day.

Now these are the gold images which the Philistines sent as a sin-offering to the Lord; one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron;

So the men of Kiriath-jearim came and took the ark of the Lord to the house of Abinadab in Gibeah, and they made his son Eleazar holy and put the ark in his care.

The name of his first son was Joel and the name of his second Abijah: they were judges in Beer-sheba.

Now there was a man of Benjamin named Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a man of wealth.

He had a son named Saul, a specially good-looking young man; there was no one better-looking among the children of Israel: he was taller by a head than any other of the people.

Now the asses of Saul's father Kish had gone wandering away. And Kish said to his son Saul, Take one of the servants with you, and get up and go in search of the asses.

So they went through the hill-country of Ephraim and through the land of Shalishah, but they saw no sign of them: then they went through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there: and they went through the land of the Benjamites, but they did not come across them.

Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, and on him you are to put the holy oil, making him ruler over my people Israel, and he will make my people safe from the hands of the Philistines: for I have seen the sorrow of my people, whose cry has come up to me.

Then Samuel took the bottle of oil, and put the oil on his head and gave him a kiss and said, Is not the Lord with the holy oil making you ruler over Israel, his people? and you will have authority over the people of the Lord, and you will make them safe from the hands of their attackers round about them, and this will be the sign for you:

When you have gone away from me today, you will see two men by the resting-place of Rachel's body, in the land of Benjamin at Zelzah; and they will say to you, The asses which you went in search of have come back, and now your father, caring no longer for the asses, is troubled about you, saying, What am I to do about my son?

Now when Saul's old friends saw him among the band of prophets, the people said to one another, What has come to Saul, the son of Kish? Is even Saul among the prophets?

And Saul's father's brother said to him and his servant, Where have you been? And he said, Searching for the asses: and when we saw no sign of them, we came to Samuel.

Then he made the tribe of Benjamin come near by families, and the family of the Matrites was taken: and from them, Saul, the son of Kish, was taken: but when they went in search of him he was nowhere to be seen.

Then he said to the representatives who had come, Say to the men of Jabesh-gilead, Tomorrow, by the time the sun is high, you will be made safe. And the representatives came and gave the news to the men of Jabesh; and they were glad.

Then he said, The Lord is witness against you, and the man on whom he has put the holy oil is witness this day that you have seen no wrong in me. And they said, He is witness.

Is it not now the time of the grain cutting? My cry will go up to the Lord and he will send thunder and rain: so that you may see and be conscious of your great sin which you have done in the eyes of the Lord in desiring a king for yourselves.

And Saul, with Jonathan his son and the people who were with them, was waiting in Geba in the land of Benjamin: but the tents of the Philistines were in Michmash.

So on the day of the fight at Michmash, not a sword or a spear was to be seen in the hands of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan: only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.

Now one day Jonathan, the son of Saul, said to the young man who was with him, looking after his arms, Come, let us go over to the Philistine force over there. But he said nothing to his father.

And Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, brother of Ichabod, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the priest of the Lord in Shiloh, who had the ephod. And the people had no idea that Jonathan had gone.

Now between the narrow roads over the mountains by which Jonathan was making his way to the Philistines' forces, there was a sharp overhanging rock on one side, and a sharp rock on the other side: one was named Bozez and the other Seneh.

But if they say, Come up to us; then we will go up, for the Lord has given them into our hands: and this will be the sign to us.

Then Saul said to the people who were with him, Let everyone be numbered and let us see who has gone from us. And when they had been numbered, it was seen that Jonathan and his servant were not there.

And Saul said, Go about among the people and say to them, Let every man come here to me with his ox and his sheep, and put them to death here, and take his meal: do no sin against the Lord by taking the blood with the flesh. So all the people took their oxen with them that night and put them to death there.

And Saul said, Come near, all you chiefs of the people, and let us get word from God and see in whom is this sin today.

For, by the living Lord, the saviour of Israel, even if the sinner is Jonathan, my son, death will certainly be his fate. But not a man among all the people gave him any answer.

Then he said to all Israel, You be on one side, and I with Jonathan my son will be on the other side. And the people said to Saul, Do whatever seems good to you.