Judges*

1 And after the death+ of Joshua it came about that the sons of Israel proceeded to inquire+ of Jehovah, saying: “Who of us will go up first to the Caʹnaan·ites to fight against them?” 2 To this Jehovah said: “Judah will go up.+ Look! I shall certainly give the land into his hand.” 3 Then Judah said to Simʹe·on his brother: “Come up with me into my lot+ and let us fight against the Caʹnaan·ites, and I myself in turn will go with you into your lot.”+ Accordingly Simʹe·on went with him.+

4 With that Judah went on up and Jehovah gave the Caʹnaan·ites and the Perʹiz·zites into their hands,+ so that they defeated them in Beʹzek, ten thousand men. 5 When they found A·doʹni-beʹzek in Beʹzek, then they fought against him and defeated the Caʹnaan·ites+ and the Perʹiz·zites.+ 6 When A·doʹni-beʹzek took to flight, then they went chasing after him and got hold of him and cut off the thumbs of his hands and the great toes of his feet. 7 At this A·doʹni-beʹzek said: “There have been seventy kings with the thumbs of their hands and the great toes of their feet cut off picking up food under my table. Just the way I have done, so God has repaid me.”+ After that they brought him to Jerusalem+ and he died there.

8 Furthermore, the sons of Judah carried on war against Jerusalem+ and got to capture it, and they went striking it with the edge of the sword, and the city they consigned to the fire. 9 And afterward the sons of Judah went down to fight against the Caʹnaan·ites inhabiting the mountainous region and the Negʹeb+ and the She·pheʹlah.+ 10 So Judah marched against the Caʹnaan·ites who were dwelling in Heʹbron+ (now the name of Heʹbron before that was Kirʹi·ath-arʹba),+ and they went striking down Sheʹshai and A·hiʹman and Talʹmai.+

11 And they marched on from there against the inhabitants of Deʹbir.+ (Now the name of Deʹbir before that was Kirʹi·ath-seʹpher.)+ 12 Then Caʹleb+ said: “Whoever strikes Kirʹi·ath-seʹpher and does capture it, why, I will give him Achʹsah+ my daughter as a wife.”+ 13 And Othʹni·el+ the son of Keʹnaz,+ Caʹleb’s younger brother,+ got to capture it. For that he gave him Achʹsah his daughter as a wife.+ 14 And it came about that while she was going home, she kept inciting him to ask a field from her father. Then she clapped her hands while upon the ass.*+ At this Caʹleb said to her: “What do you want?” 15 So she said to him: “Do grant me a blessing,+ for it is a southern piece of land you have given me, and you must give me Gulʹloth-maʹim.”* Accordingly Caʹleb gave her Upper Gulʹloth+ and Lower Gulʹloth.*

16 And the sons of the Kenʹite,+ whose son-in-law Moses was,*+ came up out of the city of palm trees+ with the sons of Judah to the wilderness of Judah, which is to the south of Aʹrad.+ Then they went and took up dwelling with the people.+ 17 But Judah marched on with Simʹe·on his brother, and they proceeded to strike the Caʹnaan·ites inhabiting Zeʹphath and to devote it to destruction.+ Hence the name of the city was called Horʹmah.*+ 18 After that Judah captured Gaʹza+ and its territory and Ashʹke·lon+ and its territory and Ekʹron+ and its territory. 19 And Jehovah continued with Judah, so that he took possession of the mountainous region, but he could not dispossess the inhabitants of the low plain, because they had war chariots+ with iron scythes.*+ 20 When they gave Caʹleb Heʹbron, just as Moses had promised,+ then he drove out from there the three sons of Aʹnak.+

21 And the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebʹu·sites inhabiting Jerusalem;+ but the Jebʹu·sites keep on dwelling with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem down to this day.+

22 Meantime the house of Joseph+ itself also went up against Bethʹel,+ and Jehovah was with them.+ 23 And the house of Joseph began to spy+ on Bethʹel (incidentally, the name of the city before that was Luz),+ 24 and the watchers got to see a man going out of the city. So they said to him: “Show us, please, the way to get into the city, and we shall certainly exercise kindness toward you.”+ 25 Accordingly the man showed them the way to get into the city; and they went striking the city with the edge of the sword,+ but the man and all his family they let go.+ 26 Upon that the man went to the land of the Hitʹtites+ and built a city and called its name Luz. That is its name down to this day.

27 And Ma·nasʹseh+ did not take possession of Beth-sheʹan+ and its dependent towns and Taʹa·nach+ and its dependent towns* and the inhabitants of Dor+ and its dependent towns and the inhabitants of Ibʹle·am+ and its dependent towns and the inhabitants of Me·gidʹdo+ and its dependent towns, but the Caʹnaan·ites persisted in dwelling in this land.+ 28 And it came about that Israel grew strong+ and proceeded to set the Caʹnaan·ites to forced labor,+ and they did not drive them out completely.+

29 Neither did Eʹphra·im drive out the Caʹnaan·ites who were dwelling in Geʹzer, but the Caʹnaan·ites continued to dwell in among them in Geʹzer.+

30 Zebʹu·lun+ did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitʹron and the inhabitants of Naʹha·lol,+ but the Caʹnaan·ites continued to dwell in among them+ and came to be subject to forced labor.+

31 Ashʹer+ did not drive out the inhabitants of Acʹco* and the inhabitants of Siʹdon+ and Ahʹlab and Achʹzib+ and Helʹbah and Aʹphik+ and Reʹhob.+ 32 And the Ashʹer·ites continued to dwell in among the Caʹnaan·ites inhabiting the land, because they did not drive them out.+

33 Naphʹta·li+ did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-sheʹmesh and the inhabitants of Beth-aʹnath,+ but they continued to dwell in among the Caʹnaan·ites inhabiting the land;+ and the inhabitants of Beth-sheʹmesh and of Beth-aʹnath became theirs for forced labor.+

34 And the Amʹor·ites kept pressing the sons of Dan+ into the mountainous region, for they did not allow them to come down into the low plain.+ 35 So the Amʹor·ites persisted in dwelling in Mount Heʹres and in Aiʹja·lon+ and Sha·alʹbim.+ But the hand of the house of Joseph got to be so heavy that they were forced into task work.+ 36 And the territory of the Amʹor·ites was from the ascent of A·krabʹbim,+ from Seʹla* upward.

2 Then Jehovah’s angel+ went up from Gilʹgal+ to Boʹchim+ and said: “I proceeded to bring YOU up out of Egypt and to bring YOU into the land about which I swore* to YOUR forefathers.+ Furthermore, I said, ‘Never shall I break my covenant with YOU.+ 2 And for YOUR part, YOU must not conclude a covenant with the inhabitants of this land.+ Their altars YOU should pull down.’+ But YOU have not listened to my voice.+ Why have YOU done this?+ 3 So I, in turn, have said, ‘I shall not drive them away from before YOU, and they must become snares to YOU,+ and their gods will serve as a lure to YOU.’”+

4 And it came about that as soon as Jehovah’s angel had spoken these words to all the sons of Israel, the people began to raise their voices and weep.+ 5 Hence they called the name of that place Boʹchim.* And they proceeded to sacrifice there to Jehovah.

6 When Joshua sent the people away, then the sons of Israel went their way, each to his inheritance, to take possession of the land.+ 7 And the people continued to serve Jehovah all the days of Joshua and all the days of the older men* who extended their days after Joshua* and who had seen all of Jehovah’s great work that he did for Israel.+ 8 Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Jehovah, died at the age of a hundred and ten years.+ 9 So they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timʹnath-heʹres*+ in the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im, on the north of Mount Gaʹash.+ 10 And all that generation too were gathered to their fathers,+ and another generation began to rise after them that did not know Jehovah or the work that he had done for Israel.+

11 And the sons of Israel fell to doing what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah+ and serving* the Baʹals.+ 12 Thus they abandoned Jehovah the God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt+ and went following other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them+ and they began bowing down to them, so that they offended Jehovah.+ 13 Thus they abandoned Jehovah and took up serving Baʹal and the Ashʹto·reth+ images.* 14 At this Jehovah’s anger blazed against Israel,+ so that he gave them into the hands of the pillagers, and they began to pillage them;+ and he proceeded to sell* them into the hand of their enemies round about,+ and they were no longer able to stand before their enemies.+ 15 Everywhere that they went out, the hand of Jehovah proved to be against them for calamity,+ just as Jehovah had spoken and just as Jehovah had sworn to them;+ and they got to be in very sore straits.+ 16 So Jehovah would raise up judges,+ and they would save them out of the hand of their pillagers.+

17 And even to their judges they did not listen, but they had immoral intercourse*+ with other gods+ and went bowing down to them. They quickly turned aside from the way in which their forefathers had walked by obeying the commandments of Jehovah.+ They did not do like that. 18 And when Jehovah did raise up judges+ for them, Jehovah proved to be with the judge, and he saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for Jehovah would feel regret+ over their groaning because of their oppressors+ and those who were shoving them around.

19 And it occurred that when the judge died they would turn around and act more ruinously than their fathers by walking after other gods to serve them and bow down to them.+ They did not refrain from their practices and their stubborn behavior.+ 20 Finally Jehovah’s anger blazed+ against Israel and he said: “For the reason that this nation have overstepped my covenant+ that I commanded their forefathers and have not listened to my voice,+ 21 I too, for my part, shall not drive out again from before them a single one of the nations that Joshua left behind when he died,+ 22 in order by them to test+ Israel, whether they will be keepers of Jehovah’s way by walking in it just as their fathers kept it, or not.” 23 Accordingly Jehovah let these nations stay by not driving them out quickly,+ and he did not give them into Joshua’s hand.

3 Now these are the nations+ that Jehovah let stay so as by them to test+ Israel, that is, all those who had not experienced any of the wars of Caʹnaan;+ 2 it was only in order for the generations of the sons of Israel to have the experience, so as to teach them war, that is, only those who before that had not experienced such things: 3 The five axis lords*+ of the Phi·lisʹtines,+ and all the Caʹnaan·ites,+ even the Si·doʹni·ans+ and the Hiʹvites+ inhabiting Mount Lebʹa·non+ from Mount Baʹal-herʹmon+ as far as to the entering in of Haʹmath.*+ 4 And they kept serving as agents to test+ Israel so as to know whether they would obey Jehovah’s commandments that he had commanded their fathers by means of Moses.+ 5 And the sons of Israel dwelt in among the Caʹnaan·ites,+ the Hitʹtites and the Amʹor·ites and the Perʹiz·zites and the Hiʹvites and the Jebʹu·sites.+ 6 And they proceeded to take their daughters as wives for themselves,+ and their own daughters they gave to their sons,+ and they took up serving their gods.+

7 So the sons of Israel did what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes, and they were forgetful of Jehovah their God+ and went serving the Baʹals+ and the sacred poles.*+ 8 At this Jehovah’s anger blazed against Israel,+ so that he sold+ them into the hand of Cuʹshan-rish·a·thaʹim the king of Mes·o·po·taʹmi·a;*+ and the sons of Israel continued to serve Cuʹshan-rish·a·thaʹim eight years. 9 And the sons of Israel began to call to Jehovah for aid.+ Then Jehovah raised a savior+ up for the sons of Israel that he might save them, Othʹni·el+ the son of Keʹnaz,+ the younger brother of Caʹleb.+ 10 The spirit+ of Jehovah now came upon him, and he became the judge of Israel. When he went out to battle, then Jehovah gave Cuʹshan-rish·a·thaʹim the king of Syria* into his hand so that his hand overpowered+ Cuʹshan-rish·a·thaʹim. 11 After that the land had no disturbance for forty years. Eventually Othʹni·el the son of Keʹnaz died.

12 And once again the sons of Israel went doing what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes.+ At that Jehovah let Egʹlon the king of Moʹab+ grow strong against Israel,+ because they did what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes.+ 13 Furthermore, he gathered against them the sons of Amʹmon+ and Amʹa·lek.+ Then they went and struck Israel and took possession of the city+ of palm trees. 14 And the sons of Israel continued to serve Egʹlon the king of Moʹab eighteen years.+ 15 And the sons of Israel began to call to Jehovah for aid.+ So Jehovah raised up for them a savior, Eʹhud+ the son of Geʹra, a Benʹja·mite,+ a left-handed man.*+ In time the sons of Israel sent tribute* by his hand to Egʹlon the king of Moʹab. 16 Meanwhile Eʹhud made a sword for himself, and it had two edges,+ its length being a cubit.* Then he girded it underneath his garment upon his right thigh.+ 17 And he proceeded to present the tribute to Egʹlon the king of Moʹab.+ Now Egʹlon was a very fat man.

18 And it came about that when he had finished presenting the tribute,+ he at once sent the people away, the bearers of the tribute. 19 And he himself turned back at the quarries* that were at Gilʹgal,+ and he proceeded to say: “I have a secret word for you, O king.” So he said: “Keep silence!” With that all those who were standing by him went on out from him.+ 20 And Eʹhud came to him as he was sitting in his cool roof chamber that he had to himself. And Eʹhud went on to say: “A word of God I have for you.” At that he rose up from his throne. 21 Then Eʹhud thrust in his left hand and took the sword off his right thigh and plunged it into his belly. 22 And the handle kept going in also after the blade so that the fat closed in over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly, and the fecal matter began to come out.* 23 And Eʹhud proceeded to go out through the air hole,* but he closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them. 24 And he himself went out.+

And his servants came and began looking, and there the doors of the roof chamber were locked. So they said: “He is just easing nature*+ in the cool interior room.” 25 And they kept waiting until they were ashamed, and, look! there was no one opening the doors of the roof chamber. At this they took the key and opened them, and, look! their lord* was fallen to the earth dead!

26 As for Eʹhud, he escaped while they were lingering, and he himself passed by the quarries+ and made his escape to Se·iʹrah. 27 And it came about that when he got there he began blowing the horn*+ in the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im;+ and the sons of Israel began going down with him out of the mountainous region, he being at their head. 28 Then he said to them: “Follow me,+ because Jehovah has given YOUR enemies, the Moʹab·ites, into YOUR hand.”+ And they went following him and got to capture the fords+ of the Jordan against the Moʹab·ites, and they did not allow anybody to pass over. 29 And at that time they went striking down Moʹab, about ten thousand men,+ every one robust*+ and every one a valiant man; and not a single one escaped.+ 30 And Moʹab came to be subdued on that day under Israel’s hand; and the land had no further disturbance for eighty years.+

31 And after him there proved to be Shamʹgar+ the son of Aʹnath, and he went striking down the Phi·lisʹtines,+ six hundred men, with a cattle goad; and he too got to save Israel.+

4 Then the sons of Israel again began to do what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes now that Eʹhud was dead.+ 2 So Jehovah sold+ them into the hand of Jaʹbin the king of Caʹnaan, who reigned in Haʹzor;+ and the chief* of his army was Sisʹe·ra,+ and he was dwelling in Ha·roʹsheth+ of the nations.* 3 And the sons of Israel began to cry out to Jehovah,+ because he had nine hundred war chariots with iron scythes,*+ and he himself oppressed the sons of Israel+ with harshness twenty years.

4 Now Debʹo·rah,* a prophetess,+ the wife of Lapʹpi·doth, was judging Israel at that particular time. 5 And she was dwelling under Debʹo·rah’s palm tree between Raʹmah+ and Bethʹel+ in the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im; and the sons of Israel would go up to her for judgment. 6 And she proceeded to send and call Baʹrak+ the son of A·binʹo·am out of Keʹdesh-naphʹta·li+ and to say to him: “Has not Jehovah the God of Israel given the command? ‘Go and you must spread yourself out on Mount Taʹbor,+ and you must take with you ten thousand men out of the sons of Naphʹta·li+ and out of the sons of Zebʹu·lun.+ 7 And I shall certainly draw to you+ at the torrent valley of Kiʹshon+ Sisʹe·ra+ the chief of Jaʹbin’s+ army and his war chariots and his crowd, and I shall indeed give him into your hand.’”+

8 At this Baʹrak said to her: “If you will go with me, I also shall certainly go; but if you will not go with me, I shall not go.” 9 To this she said: “Without fail I shall go with you. Just the same, the beautifying thing will not become yours on the way that you are going, for it will be into the hand of a woman+ that Jehovah will sell* Sisʹe·ra.” With that Debʹo·rah got up and went with Baʹrak to Keʹdesh.+ 10 And Baʹrak began to call Zebʹu·lun+ and Naphʹta·li together to Keʹdesh, and ten thousand men went on up following his steps;+ and Debʹo·rah went on up with him.

11 Incidentally Heʹber+ the Kenʹite had separated from the Kenʹites,+ the sons of Hoʹbab, whose son-in-law Moses was,*+ and he had his tent pitched near the big tree in Za·a·nanʹnim, which is at Keʹdesh.

12 Then they reported to Sisʹe·ra that Baʹrak the son of A·binʹo·am+ had gone up to Mount Taʹbor.+ 13 At once Sisʹe·ra called together all his war chariots, the nine hundred war chariots with iron scythes,+ and all the people that were with him, out of Ha·roʹsheth of the nations to the torrent valley of Kiʹshon.+ 14 Debʹo·rah now said to Baʹrak: “Get up, for this is the day that Jehovah will certainly give Sisʹe·ra into your hand. Is it not Jehovah that has gone out before you?”+ And Baʹrak went descending from Mount Taʹbor with ten thousand men behind him. 15 And Jehovah began to throw Sisʹe·ra and all his war chariots and all the camp into confusion+ by the edge of the sword before Baʹrak. Finally Sisʹe·ra got down off the chariot and took to flight on foot. 16 And Baʹrak chased after+ the war chariots+ and the camp as far as Ha·roʹsheth of the nations, so that all the camp of Sisʹe·ra fell by the edge of the sword. Not as much as one remained.+

17 As for Sisʹe·ra,+ he fled on foot to the tent of Jaʹel+ the wife of Heʹber the Kenʹite,+ for there was peace between Jaʹbin the king of Haʹzor+ and the household of Heʹber the Kenʹite. 18 Then Jaʹel came on out to meet Sisʹe·ra and said to him: “Turn this way, my lord, turn this way to me. Do not be afraid.” So he turned aside to her into the tent. Later she covered him with a blanket. 19 In time he said to her: “Give me, please, a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” Accordingly she opened a skin bottle+ of milk and gave him a drink,+ after which she covered him. 20 And he went on to say to her: “Stand at the entrance of the tent, and it must occur that if anybody comes and does ask you and says, ‘Is there a man here?’ you must then say, ‘No!’”

21 And Jaʹel the wife of Heʹber proceeded to take a pin of the tent and to put the hammer into her hand. Then she went to him stealthily and drove the pin into his temples+ and beat it into the earth, while he was fast asleep* and weary. So he died.+

22 And, look! there was Baʹrak pursuing Sisʹe·ra. Jaʹel now came on out to meet him and said to him: “Come and I shall show you the man you are looking for.” So in he went to her, and, look! there was Sisʹe·ra fallen dead, with the pin in his temples.

23 Thus God subdued+ Jaʹbin the king of Caʹnaan before the sons of Israel on that day. 24 And the hand of the sons of Israel went on getting harder and harder against Jaʹbin the king of Caʹnaan,+ until they had cut off Jaʹbin the king+ of Caʹnaan.

5 And on that day Debʹo·rah+ along with Baʹrak+ the son of A·binʹo·am+ broke out in song,+ saying:

And the land had no further disturbance for forty years.+

6 Then the sons of Israel began to do what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah.+ So Jehovah gave them into the hand of Midʹi·an+ for seven years. 2 And the hand of Midʹi·an came to prevail over Israel.+ Due to Midʹi·an the sons of Israel made for themselves the underground store places that were in the mountains, and the caves and the places difficult to approach.+ 3 And it occurred that, if Israel sowed seed,+ Midʹi·an and Amʹa·lek+ and the Easterners*+ came up, yes, they came up against them. 4 And they would camp against them and would ruin the yield of the earth all the way to Gaʹza, and they would not let any sustenance or sheep or bull or ass remain in Israel.+ 5 For they and their livestock would come up with their tents. They would come as numerous as the locusts,+ and they and their camels were without number;+ and they would come into the land to ruin it.+ 6 And Israel became greatly impoverished due to Midʹi·an; and the sons of Israel began to call to Jehovah for aid.+

7 And it came about that because the sons of Israel called to Jehovah for aid on account of Midʹi·an,+ 8 Jehovah proceeded to send a man, a prophet,+ to the sons of Israel and to say to them: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel has said, ‘It was I who brought YOU up from Egypt+ and thus brought YOU out of the house of slaves.+ 9 So I delivered YOU out of the hand of Egypt and out of the hand of all YOUR oppressors and drove them out from before YOU and gave YOU their land.+ 10 Furthermore, I said to YOU: “I am Jehovah YOUR God.+ YOU must not fear the gods of the Amʹor·ites+ in whose land YOU are dwelling.”+ And YOU did not listen to my voice.’”+

11 Later Jehovah’s angel came+ and sat under the big tree that was in Ophʹrah, which belonged to Joʹash the Abi-ezʹrite,+ while Gidʹe·on+ his son was beating out wheat in the winepress so as to get it quickly out of the sight of Midʹi·an. 12 Then Jehovah’s angel appeared to him and said to him: “Jehovah is with you,+ you valiant, mighty one.” 13 At this Gidʹe·on said to him: “Excuse me, my lord, but if Jehovah is with us, then why has all this come upon us,+ and where are all his wonderful acts+ that our fathers related to us,+ saying, ‘Was it not out of Egypt that Jehovah brought us up?’+ And now Jehovah has deserted us,+ and he gives us into the palm of Midʹi·an.” 14 Upon that Jehovah* faced him and said: “Go in this power of yours,+ and you will certainly save Israel out of Midʹi·an’s palm.+ Do I not send you?”+ 15 In turn he said to him: “Excuse me, Jehovah.* With what shall I save Israel?+ Look! My thousand* is the least in Ma·nasʹseh, and I am the smallest in my father’s house.”+ 16 But Jehovah said to him: “Because I shall prove to be with you,+ and you will certainly strike down Midʹi·an+ as if one man.”

17 At this he said to him: “If, now, I have found favor in your eyes,+ you must also perform a sign for me that you are the one speaking with me.+ 18 Do not, please, move away from here until I come to you+ and I have brought out my gift and set it before you.”+ Accordingly he said: “I, for my part, shall keep sitting here until you return.” 19 And Gidʹe·on went in and proceeded to make ready a kid of the goats+ and an eʹphah* of flour as unfermented cakes.+ The meat he put in the basket, and the broth he put in the cooking pot, after which he brought it out to him under the big tree and served it.

20 The angel of the [true] God* now said to him: “Take the meat and the unfermented cakes and set them on the big rock there,*+ and pour out the broth.” At that he did so. 21 Then Jehovah’s angel thrust out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unfermented cakes, and fire began to ascend out of the rock and to consume the meat and the unfermented cakes.+ As for Jehovah’s angel, he vanished from his sight. 22 Consequently Gidʹe·on realized that it was Jehovah’s angel.+

At once Gidʹe·on said: “Alas, Sovereign Lord Jehovah, for the reason that I have seen Jehovah’s angel face to face!”+ 23 But Jehovah said to him: “Peace be yours.+ Do not fear.+ You will not die.”+ 24 So Gidʹe·on built an altar+ there to Jehovah, and it continues to be called*+ Je·hoʹvah-shaʹlom* down to this day. It is yet in Ophʹrah+ of the Abi-ezʹrites.

25 And it came about during that night that Jehovah went on to say to him: “Take the young bull, the bull that belongs to your father, that is, the second young bull of seven years, and you must tear down the altar of Baʹal+ that is your father’s, and the sacred pole* that is by it you should cut down.+ 26 And you must build an altar to Jehovah your God at the head of this stronghold, with the row of stones, and you must take the second young bull and offer it up as a burnt offering on the pieces of wood of the sacred pole that you will cut down.” 27 Accordingly Gidʹe·on took ten men of his servants and went doing just as Jehovah had spoken to him;+ but it came about that, as he feared the household of his father and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he went doing it by night.+

28 When the men of the city got up early in the morning as usual, why, look! the altar of Baʹal had been pulled down and the sacred pole+ that was beside it had been cut down, and the second young bull had been offered up on the altar that had been built. 29 And they began to say one to another: “Who has done this thing?” And they went inquiring and seeking. Finally they said: “Gidʹe·on the son of Joʹash is the one that has done this thing.” 30 So the men of the city said to Joʹash: “Bring your son out that he may die,+ because he has pulled down the altar of Baʹal, and because he has cut down the sacred pole that was by it.” 31 At this Joʹash+ said to all those who stood against him:+ “Will YOU be the ones to make a legal defense for Baʹal to see whether YOU yourselves may save him? Whoever makes a legal defense for him ought to be put to death even this morning.+ If he is God,+ let him make a legal defense for himself,+ because someone has pulled down his altar.” 32 And he began to call him Jer·ub·baʹal*+ on that day, saying: “Let Baʹal make a legal defense in his own behalf, because someone has pulled down his altar.”+

33 And all Midʹi·an+ and Amʹa·lek+ and the Easterners+ gathered together as one+ and proceeded to cross over and camp in the low plain of Jezʹre·el.+ 34 And Jehovah’s spirit+ enveloped* Gidʹe·on so that he went blowing the horn,*+ and the Abi-ezʹrites*+ got to be called together after him. 35 And he sent out messengers+ through all of Ma·nasʹseh, and they too got to be called together after him. He also sent out messengers through Ashʹer and Zebʹu·lun and Naphʹta·li, and they came on up to meet him.*

36 Then Gidʹe·on said to the [true] God: “If you are saving Israel by means of me, just as you have promised,+ 37 here I am keeping a fleece of wool exposed on the threshing floor. If dew comes to be on the fleece alone but on all the earth there is dryness, then I must know that you will save Israel by means of me, just as you have promised.” 38 And it turned out to be that way. When he rose up early the next day and wrung the fleece, he got to drain off enough dew from the fleece to fill a large banquet bowl with water. 39 However, Gidʹe·on said to the [true] God: “Do not let your anger blaze against me, but let me speak just once more. Let me, please, make a test only once more with the fleece. Let, please, dryness occur to the fleece alone, and upon all the earth let there come to be dew.” 40 So God did that way on that night; and dryness came to be on the fleece alone, and upon all the earth dew occurred.

7 Then Jer·ub·baʹal,+ that is to say, Gidʹe·on,+ and all the people who were with him, rose early and took up camping at the well of Haʹrod;* and the camp of Midʹi·an happened to be on the north of him, at the hill of Moʹreh, in the low plain. 2 Jehovah now said to Gidʹe·on: “The people who are with you are too many for me to give Midʹi·an into their hand.+ Perhaps Israel would brag+ about itself against me, saying, ‘My hand it was that saved me.’+ 3 And now call out, please, in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Who is there afraid and trembling? Let him retire.’”+ So Gidʹe·on put them to the proof.* With that, twenty-two thousand of the people retired, and there were ten thousand that remained.

4 Still Jehovah said to Gidʹe·on: “There are yet too many people.+ Have them go down to the water that I may put them to the proof for you there. And it must occur that of whomever I say to you, ‘This one will go with you,’ he is one that will go with you, but every one of whom I say to you, ‘This one will not go along with you,’ he is one that will not go along.” 5 So he had the people go down to the water.+

Then Jehovah said to Gidʹe·on: “Every one that laps up some of the water with his tongue just as a dog laps, you will set him by himself, also every one that bends down upon his knees to drink.”+ 6 And the number of those lapping with their hand to their mouth turned out to be three hundred men. As for all the rest of the people, they bent down upon their knees to drink water.

7 Jehovah now said to Gidʹe·on: “By the three hundred men who did the lapping I shall save YOU people, and I will give Midʹi·an into your hand.+ As for all the other people, let them go each one to his place.” 8 So they took the provisions of the people in their hand,* and their horns,+ and all the men of Israel he sent away each one to his home;* and he kept hold of the three hundred men. As for the camp of Midʹi·an, it happened to be down below him in the low plain.+

9 And it came about during that night+ that Jehovah proceeded to say to him: “Rise up, descend upon the camp, for I have given it into your hand.+ 10 But if you are afraid to descend, descend, you with Puʹrah your attendant,* to the camp.+ 11 And you must listen to what they will speak,+ and afterward your hands will certainly grow strong,+ and you will be certain to descend upon the camp.” At that he and Puʹrah his attendant made their descent to the edge of those in battle formation who were in the camp.

12 Now Midʹi·an and Amʹa·lek and all the Easterners+ were plumped in the low plain as numerous as locusts;+ and their camels+ were without number, as numerous as the grains of sand that are on the seashore. 13 Gidʹe·on now came, and, look! there was a man relating a dream to his companion, and he went on to say: “Here is a dream that I have dreamed.+ And, look! there was a round cake of barley bread turning over and over into the camp of Midʹi·an. Then it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell,+ and it went turning it upside down, and the tent fell flat.” 14 At this his companion answered+ and said: “This is nothing else but the sword of Gidʹe·on+ the son of Joʹash, a man of Israel. The [true] God+ has given Midʹi·an and all the camp into his hand.”+

15 And it came about that as soon as Gidʹe·on heard the relating of the dream and its explanation,+ he began to worship.*+ After that he returned to the camp of Israel and said: “Get up,+ for Jehovah has given the camp of Midʹi·an into YOUR hand.” 16 Then he divided the three hundred men up into three bands and put horns+ in the hands of all of them and large empty jars, and torches inside the large jars. 17 And he went on to say to them: “YOU should learn from watching me,* and that is how YOU should do. And when I am come to the edge of the camp, it must also occur that just as I shall do, so YOU will do. 18 When I have blown the horn, I and all who are with me, YOU also must blow the horns, YOU too, round about all the camp,+ and YOU must say, ‘Jehovah’s+ and Gidʹe·on’s!’”

19 In time Gidʹe·on came with the hundred men who were with him to the edge of the camp at the start of the middle night watch.+ They had just got through posting the sentries. And they proceeded to blow the horns,+ and there was a dashing to pieces of the large water jars that were in their hands.+ 20 At that the three bands blew the horns+ and shattered the large jars and took fresh hold on the torches with their left hand and with their right hand on the horns to blow them, and they began calling out: “Jehovah’s+ sword and Gidʹe·on’s!” 21 All the while they kept standing each one in his place all around the camp, and the whole camp got on the run and broke out into shouting and went fleeing.+ 22 And the three hundred+ continued to blow the horns,+ and Jehovah proceeded to set the sword of each one against the other in all the camp;+ and the camp kept up their flight as far as Beth-shitʹtah, on to Zerʹe·rah,* as far as the outskirts of Aʹbel-me·hoʹlah+ by Tabʹbath.

23 Meantime the men of Israel were called together from Naphʹta·li+ and Ashʹer+ and all of Ma·nasʹseh,+ and they went chasing+ after Midʹi·an. 24 And Gidʹe·on sent messengers into all the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im,+ saying: “Go down to meet Midʹi·an and capture ahead of them the waters as far as Beth-barʹah and the Jordan.” So all the men of Eʹphra·im were called together, and they got to capture the waters+ as far as Beth-barʹah and the Jordan. 25 They also got to capture the two princes of Midʹi·an, namely, Oʹreb and Zeʹeb;+ and they proceeded to kill Oʹreb on the rock of Oʹreb,+ and they killed Zeʹeb at the wine vat of Zeʹeb. And they kept on pursuing Midʹi·an,+ and they brought the head of Oʹreb and that of Zeʹeb to Gidʹe·on in the region of the Jordan.*+

8 Then the men of Eʹphra·im said to him: “What sort of thing is this that you have done to us in not calling us when you went to fight against Midʹi·an?”+ And they vehemently tried to pick a quarrel with him.+ 2 Finally he said to them: “What now have I done in comparison with YOU?+ Are not the gleanings of Eʹphra·im+ better than the grape gathering of Abi-eʹzer?+ 3 It was into YOUR hand that God* gave Midʹi·an’s princes Oʹreb and Zeʹeb,+ and what have I been able to do in comparison with YOU?” It was then that their spirit calmed down toward him when he spoke this word.+

4 Eventually Gidʹe·on came to the Jordan, crossing it, he and the three hundred men that were with him, tired but keeping up the pursuit. 5 Later he said to the men of Sucʹcoth:+ “Please give round loaves of bread to the people that are following my steps,+ for they are tired and I am chasing after Zeʹbah+ and Zal·munʹna,+ the kings of Midʹi·an.” 6 But the princes of Sucʹcoth said: “Are the palms of Zeʹbah and of Zal·munʹna already in your hand so that bread has to be given to your army?”+ 7 At this Gidʹe·on said: “That is why when Jehovah gives Zeʹbah and Zal·munʹna into my hand, I shall certainly give YOUR flesh a threshing with the thorns of the wilderness and the briers.”*+ 8 And he continued on his way up from there to Pe·nuʹel+ and went speaking to them in this same manner, but the men of Pe·nuʹel answered him just as the men of Sucʹcoth had answered. 9 Hence he said also to the men of Pe·nuʹel: “When I return in peace, I shall pull down this tower.”+

10 Now Zeʹbah and Zal·munʹna+ were in Karʹkor, and their camps with them, about fifteen thousand being all who were left over out of the entire camp of the Easterners;+ and those already fallen were a hundred and twenty thousand men who used to draw the sword.+ 11 And Gidʹe·on continued on up by the way of those residing in tents to the east of Noʹbah and Jogʹbe·hah+ and began to strike the camp while the camp happened to be off guard.+ 12 When Zeʹbah and Zal·munʹna took to flight, he at once went in pursuit of them and got to capture Midʹi·an’s two kings, Zeʹbah and Zal·munʹna;+ and he drove all the camp into trembling.

13 And Gidʹe·on the son of Joʹash began his return from the war by the pass that goes up to Heʹres.* 14 En route he captured a young man of the men of Sucʹcoth+ and made inquiries of him.+ So he wrote out for him the names of the princes+ of Sucʹcoth and its older men, seventy-seven men. 15 With that he went to the men of Sucʹcoth and said: “Here are Zeʹbah and Zal·munʹna respecting whom YOU taunted me, saying, ‘Are the palms of Zeʹbah and of Zal·munʹna already in your hand so that bread has to be given to your tired-out men?’”+ 16 Then he took the older men of the city and thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he put the men of Sucʹcoth through an experience.+ 17 And the tower of Pe·nuʹel+ he pulled down,+ and he proceeded to kill the men of the city.

18 He now said to Zeʹbah and Zal·munʹna:+ “What sort of men were they whom YOU killed in Taʹbor?”+ To this they said: “As you are, so were they, each one, like the sons of a king in form.” 19 At that he said: “They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. As Jehovah lives, if YOU had preserved them alive, I would not have to kill YOU.”+ 20 Then he said to Jeʹther his firstborn: “Get up, kill them.” And the young man did not draw his sword, because he was afraid, for he was yet a young man.+ 21 So Zeʹbah and Zal·munʹna said: “Get up yourself and assault us, for as a man is, so is his mightiness.”+ Accordingly Gidʹe·on got up and killed+ Zeʹbah and Zal·munʹna and took the moon-shaped ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.

22 Later the men of Israel said to Gidʹe·on: “Rule over us,+ you and your son and your grandson as well, for you have saved us out of the hand of Midʹi·an.”+ 23 But Gidʹe·on said to them: “I myself shall not rule over YOU, nor will my son rule over YOU.+ Jehovah is the one who will rule over YOU.”+ 24 And Gidʹe·on went on to say to them: “Let me make a request of YOU: Give me, each one of YOU, the nose ring+ of his booty.” (For they had nose rings of gold, because they were Ishʹma·el·ites.)+ 25 Then they said: “We shall surely give them.” With that they spread out a mantle and went throwing each one the nose ring of his booty into it. 26 And the weight of the nose rings of gold that he had requested amounted to one thousand seven hundred gold shekels,* besides the moon-shaped ornaments+ and the eardrops and the garments of wool dyed reddish purple+ that were upon the kings of Midʹi·an and besides the necklaces that were on the necks of the camels.+

27 And Gidʹe·on proceeded to make it into an ephʹod+ and to exhibit it in his city Ophʹrah;+ and all Israel began to have immoral intercourse with it* there,+ so that it served as a snare to Gidʹe·on and to his household.+

28 Thus Midʹi·an+ was subdued before the sons of Israel, and they did not lift up their head anymore; and the land had no further disturbance for forty years in the days of Gidʹe·on.+

29 And Jer·ub·baʹal+ the son of Joʹash went his way and continued to dwell in his house.

30 And Gidʹe·on came to have seventy sons+ that issued out of his upper thigh, for he came to have many wives. 31 As for the concubine of his that was in Sheʹchem, she too bore him a son. So he named him A·bimʹe·lech.+ 32 Eventually Gidʹe·on the son of Joʹash died at a good old age and was buried in the burial place of Joʹash his father in Ophʹrah of the Abi-ezʹrites.+

33 And it came about that as soon as Gidʹe·on had died the sons of Israel again took up having* immoral intercourse with the Baʹals,+ so that they appointed Baʹal-beʹrith as their god.*+ 34 And the sons of Israel did not remember Jehovah their God,+ who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies round about;+ 35 and they did not exercise loving-kindness*+ toward the household of Jer·ub·baʹal, Gidʹe·on, in return for all the goodness that he had exercised toward Israel.+

9 In time A·bimʹe·lech+ the son of Jer·ub·baʹal went to Sheʹchem+ to the brothers of his mother and began speaking to them and to all the family of the house of his mother’s father, saying: 2 “Speak, please, in the hearing of all the landowners* of Sheʹchem, ‘Which is better for YOU, for seventy men,+ all the sons of Jer·ub·baʹal, to rule over YOU or for one man to rule over YOU? And YOU must remember that YOUR bone and YOUR flesh I am.’”+

3 So the brothers of his mother began speaking all these words about him in the hearing of all the landowners of Sheʹchem so that their heart inclined toward A·bimʹe·lech,+ for they said: “He is our own brother.”+ 4 Then they gave him seventy pieces of silver from the house of Baʹal-beʹrith,+ and with them A·bimʹe·lech proceeded to hire idle and insolent men,+ that they might accompany him. 5 After that he went to the house of his father at Ophʹrah+ and killed his brothers,+ the sons of Jer·ub·baʹal, seventy men, upon one stone, but Joʹtham the youngest son of Jer·ub·baʹal was left over, because he had hid.

6 Subsequently all the landowners of Sheʹchem and all the house of Milʹlo+ gathered together and went and made A·bimʹe·lech reign as king,+ close by the big tree,+ the pillar that was in Sheʹchem.+

7 When they reported it to Joʹtham he at once went and stood on the top of Mount Gerʹi·zim+ and raised his voice and called out and said to them: “Listen to me, YOU landowners of Sheʹchem, and let God listen to YOU:

8 “Once upon a time the trees went to anoint a king over them. So they said to the olive tree,+ ‘Do be king* over us.’+ 9 But the olive tree said to them, ‘Must I give up my fatness with which they glorify+ God and men, and must I go to wave over the other trees?’+ 10 Then the trees said to the fig tree,+ ‘You come, be queen* over us.’ 11 But the fig tree said to them, ‘Must I give up my sweetness and my good produce, and must I go to wave over the other trees?’+ 12 Next the trees said to the vine, ‘You come, be queen over us.’ 13 In turn the vine said to them, ‘Must I give up my new wine that makes God and men rejoice,+ and must I go to wave over the trees?’ 14 Finally all the other trees said to the bramble,+ ‘You come, be king over us.’ 15 At this the bramble said to the trees, ‘If it is in truth that YOU are anointing me as king over YOU, come, seek refuge under my shadow.+ But if not, let fire+ come out of the bramble and consume the cedars+ of Lebʹa·non.’+

16 “And now if it is in truth and in faultlessness that YOU have acted and that YOU went making A·bimʹe·lech king,+ and if it is goodness that YOU have exercised toward Jer·ub·baʹal and his household, and if YOU have done to him as the doing of his hands deserved, 17 when my father fought+ for YOU and went risking his soul*+ that he might deliver YOU out of Midʹi·an’s+ hand; 18 and YOU, for YOUR part, have risen up against the household of my father today that YOU might kill his sons,+ seventy men,+ upon one stone, and that YOU might make A·bimʹe·lech, the son of his slave girl,+ king+ over the landowners of Sheʹchem just because he is YOUR own brother; 19 yes, if it is in truth and in faultlessness that YOU have acted toward Jer·ub·baʹal and his household this day, rejoice over A·bimʹe·lech and let him too rejoice over YOU.+ 20 But if not, let fire+ come out of A·bimʹe·lech and consume the landowners of Sheʹchem and the house of Milʹlo,+ and let fire+ come out of the landowners of Sheʹchem and the house of Milʹlo and consume A·bimʹe·lech.”+

21 Then Joʹtham+ took to flight and went running off and made his way to Beʹer, and he took up dwelling there because of A·bimʹe·lech his brother.

22 And A·bimʹe·lech kept playing the prince* over Israel three years.+ 23 Then God let develop* a bad spirit+ between A·bimʹe·lech and the landowners of Sheʹchem, and the landowners of Sheʹchem proceeded to deal treacherously+ with A·bimʹe·lech, 24 that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jer·ub·baʹal might come*+ and that he might put their blood upon A·bimʹe·lech their brother because he killed them,+ and upon the landowners of Sheʹchem because they strengthened his hands+ to kill his brothers. 25 So the landowners of Sheʹchem set ambush men for him upon the tops of the mountains, and they would rob everyone that would pass by them on the road. In time it was reported to A·bimʹe·lech.

26 Then Gaʹal+ the son of Eʹbed and his brothers came and crossed over into Sheʹchem,+ and the landowners of Sheʹchem began to trust in him.+ 27 And they went out as usual into the field and engaged in gathering the grapes of their vineyards and in treading them and in carrying on a festal exultation,+ after which they went into the house of their god+ and ate and drank+ and called down evil+ upon A·bimʹe·lech. 28 And Gaʹal the son of Eʹbed went on to say: “Who is A·bimʹe·lech,+ and who is Sheʹchem* that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Jer·ub·baʹal,+ and is not Zeʹbul+ a commissioner of his? Serve the men of Haʹmor,+ Sheʹchem’s father, YOU others, but why should we ourselves serve him? 29 And if only this people were in my hand!*+ Then I would remove A·bimʹe·lech.” And he went on to say* to A·bimʹe·lech: “Make your army numerous and come on out.”+

30 And Zeʹbul the prince of the city got to hear the words of Gaʹal the son of Eʹbed.+ Then his anger blazed. 31 So he sent messengers by subterfuge to A·bimʹe·lech,* saying: “Look! Gaʹal the son of Eʹbed and his brothers are now come to Sheʹchem,+ and here they are massing the city against you. 32 And now rise up by night,+ you and the people that are with you, and lie in wait+ in the field. 33 And it must occur in the morning that as soon as the sun shines forth you should get up early, and you must make a dash against the city; and when he and the people that are with him are going out against you, you must also do to him just as your hand finds it possible.”

34 Accordingly A·bimʹe·lech and all the people that were with him rose up by night, and they began to lie in wait against Sheʹchem in four bands. 35 Later Gaʹal+ the son of Eʹbed went out and stood at the entrance of the city gate. Then A·bimʹe·lech and the people that were with him rose up from the place of ambush. 36 When Gaʹal caught sight of the people, he at once said to Zeʹbul: “Look! People coming down from the tops of the mountains.” But Zeʹbul said to him: “The shadows of the mountains are what you are seeing as though they were men.”+

37 Later Gaʹal spoke once more and said: “Look! People coming down out of the center of the land, and one band is coming by the way of the big tree of Me·onʹe·nim.”* 38 At this Zeʹbul said to him: “Where now is that saying of yours that you mouthed,*+ ‘Who is A·bimʹe·lech that we should serve him?’+ Is not this the people whom you rejected?+ Go out now, please, and fight against them.”

39 So Gaʹal went on out at the head of the landowners of Sheʹchem and took up the fight against A·bimʹe·lech. 40 And A·bimʹe·lech set out after him, and he went fleeing before him; and the slain kept falling in numbers as far as the entrance of the gate.

41 And A·bimʹe·lech continued to dwell in A·ruʹmah,* and Zeʹbul+ proceeded to drive Gaʹal+ and his brothers out from dwelling in Sheʹchem.+ 42 And it came about on the next day that the people began to go out into the field. So they told A·bimʹe·lech.+ 43 Hence he took the people and divided them up into three bands+ and began to lie in wait in the field. Then he looked, and there the people were going out of the city. He now rose up against them and struck them down. 44 And A·bimʹe·lech and the bands* that were with him made a dash that they might stand at the entrance of the city gate, while two bands made a dash against all who were in the field, and they went striking them down.+ 45 And A·bimʹe·lech fought against the city all that day and got to capture the city; and he killed the people that were in it,+ after which he pulled the city down+ and sowed it with salt.+

46 When all the landowners of the tower of Sheʹchem heard of it, they immediately went to the vault of the house of El-beʹrith.*+ 47 Then it was reported to A·bimʹe·lech that all the landowners of the tower of Sheʹchem had collected together. 48 At that A·bimʹe·lech went up Mount Zalʹmon,+ he and all the people that were with him. A·bimʹe·lech now took an ax in his hand and cut down a branch of the trees and lifted it up and put it on his shoulder and said to the people that were with him: “What YOU have seen me do—hurry up, do like me!”+ 49 So all the people cut down also each one a branch for himself and went following A·bimʹe·lech. Then they put them against the vault, and over them they set the vault on fire, so that all the men of the tower of Sheʹchem died too, about a thousand men and women.+

50 And A·bimʹe·lech proceeded to go to Theʹbez+ and to camp against Theʹbez and capture it. 51 As a strong tower happened to be in the middle of the city, there was where all the men and women and all the landowners of the city went fleeing, after which they shut it behind them and climbed onto the roof of the tower. 52 And A·bimʹe·lech made his way to the tower and began fighting against it, and he went on up close to the entrance of the tower to burn it with fire.+ 53 Then a certain woman pitched an upper millstone upon A·bimʹe·lech’s head and broke his skull in pieces.+ 54 So he quickly called the attendant bearing his weapons and said to him: “Draw your sword and put me to death,+ for fear they should say about me, ‘It was a woman that killed him.’” Immediately his attendant ran him through, so that he died.+

55 When the men of Israel got to see that A·bimʹe·lech had died, they now went each one to his place. 56 Thus God made the evil of A·bimʹe·lech that he had done to his father by killing his seventy brothers come back.+ 57 And all the evil of the men of Sheʹchem God made come back upon their own heads, that the malediction+ of Joʹtham+ the son of Jer·ub·baʹal+ might come upon them.+

10 Now after A·bimʹe·lech there rose up to save+ Israel Toʹla the son of Puʹah, the son of Doʹdo, a man of Isʹsa·char, and he was dwelling in Shaʹmir in the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im.+ 2 And he continued to judge Israel for twenty-three years, after which he died and was buried in Shaʹmir.

3 Then after him Jaʹir the Gilʹe·ad·ite+ rose up, and he continued to judge Israel for twenty-two years. 4 And he came to have thirty sons who rode on thirty full-grown asses,+ and they had thirty cities.* These they continue to call Havʹvoth-jaʹir*+ down to this day; they are in the land of Gilʹe·ad. 5 After that Jaʹir died and was buried in Kaʹmon.

6 And the sons of Israel again proceeded to do what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah,+ and they began to serve the Baʹals+ and the Ashʹto·reth+ images and the gods of Syria+ and the gods of Siʹdon+ and the gods of Moʹab+ and the gods of the sons of Amʹmon+ and the gods of the Phi·lisʹtines.+ So they left Jehovah and did not serve him.+ 7 At this Jehovah’s anger blazed against Israel,+ so that he sold+ them into the hand of the Phi·lisʹtines+ and into the hand of the sons of Amʹmon.+ 8 Hence they shattered and heavily oppressed the sons of Israel in that year—for eighteen years all the sons of Israel that were on the side of the Jordan in the land of the Amʹor·ites that was in Gilʹe·ad. 9 And the sons of Amʹmon would cross the Jordan to fight even against Judah and Benjamin and the house of Eʹphra·im; and Israel was greatly distressed.+ 10 And the sons of Israel began to call to Jehovah for aid,+ saying: “We have sinned+ against you, because we have left our God and we serve the Baʹals.”+

11 Then Jehovah said to the sons of Israel: “Was it not from Egypt+ and from the Amʹor·ites+ and from the sons of Amʹmon+ and from the Phi·lisʹtines+ 12 and the Si·doʹni·ans+ and Amʹa·lek+ and Midʹi·an,*+ when they oppressed YOU+ and YOU went crying out to me, that I proceeded to save YOU out of their hand? 13 As for YOU, YOU abandoned me+ and took up serving other gods.+ That is why I shall not save YOU again.+ 14 Go and call for aid to the gods*+ whom YOU have chosen.+ Let them be the ones to save YOU in the time of YOUR distress.” 15 But the sons of Israel said to Jehovah: “We have sinned.+ You yourself do to us according to anything that is good in your eyes.+ Only deliver us, please, this day.”+ 16 And they began to remove the foreign gods from their midst+ and to serve Jehovah,+ so that his soul+ became impatient because of the trouble of Israel.+

17 In time the sons of Amʹmon+ were called together and pitched camp in Gilʹe·ad.+ So the sons of Israel gathered themselves together and pitched camp in Mizʹpah.+ 18 And the people and the princes of Gilʹe·ad began to say to one another: “Who is the man that will take the lead in fighting against the sons of Amʹmon?+ Let him become the head of all the inhabitants of Gilʹe·ad.”+

11 Now Jephʹthah+ the Gilʹe·ad·ite+ had become a mighty, valiant man,+ and he was the son of a prostitute+ woman, and Gilʹe·ad came to be the father of Jephʹthah. 2 And Gilʹe·ad’s wife kept bearing sons to him. When the sons of the wife got big, they proceeded to drive Jephʹthah out and to say to him: “You must have no inheritance in the household of our father,+ for you are the son of another woman.” 3 So Jephʹthah ran away because of his brothers and took up dwelling in the land of Tob.+ And idle men kept bringing themselves together to Jephʹthah, and they would go out with him.+

4 And it came about after a while that the sons of Amʹmon began to fight against Israel.+ 5 And it came about that when the sons of Amʹmon did fight against Israel,+ the older men of Gilʹe·ad immediately went to take Jephʹthah out of the land of Tob.+ 6 Then they said to Jephʹthah: “Do come and serve as our commander, and let us fight against the sons of Amʹmon.” 7 But Jephʹthah said to the older men+ of Gilʹe·ad: “Was it not YOU that hated me so that YOU drove me out of my father’s house?+ And why is it that YOU have come to me now just when YOU are in distress?”+ 8 At this the older men of Gilʹe·ad said to Jephʹthah: “That is why now we have returned+ to you, and you must go with us and fight against the sons of Amʹmon, and you must become for us the head of all the inhabitants of Gilʹe·ad.”+ 9 So Jephʹthah said to the older men of Gilʹe·ad: “If YOU are bringing me back to fight against the sons of Amʹmon, and Jehovah does abandon+ them to me, I, for my part, shall become YOUR head!” 10 In turn the older men of Gilʹe·ad said to Jephʹthah: “Let Jehovah prove to be the listener between us+ if the way we shall do is not according to your word.”+ 11 Consequently Jephʹthah went with the older men of Gilʹe·ad and the people set him over them as head and commander.+ And Jephʹthah proceeded to speak all his words before Jehovah+ in Mizʹpah.+

12 Then Jephʹthah sent messengers to the king of the sons of Amʹmon,+ saying: “What do I have to do with you,*+ seeing that you have come against me to fight in my land?” 13 So the king of the sons of Amʹmon said to the messengers of Jephʹthah: “It is because Israel took my land when they came up out of Egypt,+ from the Arʹnon+ as far as the Jabʹbok and as far as the Jordan.+ And now do return it peacefully.” 14 But Jephʹthah sent once more messengers to the king of the sons of Amʹmon 15 and said to him:

“This is what Jephʹthah has said, ‘Israel did not take the land of Moʹab+ and the land of the sons of Amʹmon.+ 16 For when they came up out of Egypt Israel went walking through the wilderness as far as the Red Sea+ and got to come to Kaʹdesh.+ 17 Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Eʹdom,+ saying: “Let me pass, please, through your land,” and the king of Eʹdom did not listen. And also to the king of Moʹab+ they sent, and he did not consent. And Israel kept dwelling in Kaʹdesh.+ 18 When they walked on through the wilderness, they went their way around the land of Eʹdom+ and the land of Moʹab, so that they went toward the rising of the sun as respects the land of Moʹab*+ and took up camping in the region of the Arʹnon; and they did not come within the boundary of Moʹab,+ because Arʹnon was the boundary of Moʹab.+

19 “‘After that Israel sent messengers to Siʹhon the king of the Amʹor·ites, the king of Heshʹbon,+ and Israel said to him: “Let us pass, please, through your land to my own place.”+ 20 And Siʹhon did not feel sure about Israel’s crossing through his territory, and Siʹhon went gathering all his people together and camping in Jaʹhaz+ and fighting against Israel.+ 21 At this Jehovah the God of Israel gave Siʹhon and all his people into Israel’s hand, so that they struck them and Israel took possession of all the land of the Amʹor·ites inhabiting that land.+ 22 Thus they took possession of all the territory of the Amʹor·ites from the Arʹnon as far as the Jabʹbok and from the wilderness as far as the Jordan.+

23 “‘And now Jehovah the God of Israel it was that dispossessed the Amʹor·ites from before his people Israel,+ and you, for your part, would dispossess* them. 24 Is it not whomever Cheʹmosh+ your god* causes you to dispossess that you will dispossess?* And every one whom Jehovah our God has dispossessed from before us is the one we shall dispossess.*+ 25 And now are you any better than Baʹlak the son of Zipʹpor, the king of Moʹab?+ Did he ever contend with Israel, or did he ever fight against them? 26 While Israel was dwelling in Heshʹbon and its dependent towns+ and in A·roʹer+ and its dependent towns and in all the cities that are by the banks of Arʹnon for three hundred years, why, then, did you never snatch them away during that time?+ 27 As for me, I have not sinned against you, but you are dealing wrong with me by fighting against me. Let Jehovah the Judge+ judge today between the sons of Israel and the sons of Amʹmon.’”

28 And the king of the sons of Amʹmon did not listen to the words of Jephʹthah that he had sent to him.+

29 Jehovah’s spirit now came upon Jephʹthah,+ and he proceeded to pass through Gilʹe·ad and Ma·nasʹseh and to pass through Mizʹpeh of Gilʹe·ad,+ and from Mizʹpeh of Gilʹe·ad he passed along to the sons of Amʹmon.

30 Then Jephʹthah made a vow+ to Jehovah and said: “If you without fail give the sons of Amʹmon into my hand, 31 it must also occur that the one coming out, who comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace+ from the sons of Amʹmon, must also become Jehovah’s,+ and I must offer that one up as a burnt offering.”+

32 So Jephʹthah passed along to the sons of Amʹmon to fight against them, and Jehovah proceeded to give them into his hand. 33 And he went striking them from A·roʹer all the way to Minʹnith+—twenty cities—and as far as Aʹbel-kerʹa·mim with a very great slaughter. Thus the sons of Amʹmon were subdued before the sons of Israel.

34 Finally Jephʹthah came to Mizʹpah+ to his home, and, look! his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourine playing and dancing!*+ Now she was absolutely the only child.* Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 And it came about that when he caught sight of her, he began to rip his garments+ and to say: “Alas, my daughter! You have indeed made me bend down, and you yourself have become the one I was ostracizing. And I—I have opened my mouth to Jehovah, and I am unable to turn back.”+

36 But she said to him: “My father, if you have opened your mouth to Jehovah, do to me according to what has gone forth from your mouth,+ since Jehovah has executed acts of vengeance for you upon your enemies, the sons of Amʹmon.” 37 And she went on to say to her father: “Let this thing be done to me: Let me alone for two months, and let me go, and I will descend upon the mountains, and let me weep over my virginity,+ I and my girl companions.”

38 At this he said: “Go!” So he sent her away for two months; and she kept going, she with her girl companions, and weeping over her virginity upon the mountains. 39 And it came about at the end of two months that she made her return to her father, after which he carried out his vow that he had made toward her.+ As for her, she never had relations with a man. And it came to be a regulation in Israel: 40 From year to year the daughters of Israel would go to give commendation to* the daughter of Jephʹthah the Gilʹe·ad·ite, four days in the year.+

12 Then the men of Eʹphra·im were called together and crossed over northward and said to Jephʹthah: “Why is it that you crossed over to fight against the sons of Amʹmon, and to us you did not issue a call to go with you?+ Your very house we shall burn over you with fire.”+ 2 But Jephʹthah said to them: “I became a special contender,* I and my people, with the sons of Amʹmon.+ And I proceeded to call to YOU for aid, and YOU did not save me out of their hand. 3 When I got to see that you were no savior, then I determined to put my soul* in my own palm+ and go over against the sons of Amʹmon.+ At that Jehovah gave them into my hand. So why have YOU come up against me this day to fight against me?”

4 Immediately Jephʹthah collected all the men of Gilʹe·ad together+ and fought Eʹphra·im; and the men of Gilʹe·ad went striking Eʹphra·im down, for they had said: “Men escaped from Eʹphra·im is what YOU are, O Gilʹe·ad, inside of Eʹphra·im, inside of Ma·nasʹseh.” 5 And Gilʹe·ad got to capture the fords of the Jordan+ ahead of Eʹphra·im; and it occurred that when the escaping men of Eʹphra·im would say: “Let me pass over,” then the men of Gilʹe·ad would say to each one: “Are you an Eʹphra·im·ite?” When he would say: “No!” 6 then they would say to him: “Please say Shibʹbo·leth.”*+ And he would say: “Sibʹbo·leth,”* as he was unable* to say the word correctly. And they would lay hold of him and slay him at the fords of the Jordan. So there fell at that time forty-two thousand out of Eʹphra·im.+

7 And Jephʹthah continued to judge Israel for six years, after which Jephʹthah the Gilʹe·ad·ite died and was buried in his city in Gilʹe·ad.*

8 And Ibʹzan from Bethʹle·hem+ began to judge Israel after him.+ 9 And he came to have thirty sons and thirty daughters. He sent outside and brought in thirty daughters for his sons from outside.* And he continued to judge Israel for seven years. 10 Then Ibʹzan died and was buried in Bethʹle·hem.

11 And after him Eʹlon the Ze·buʹlu·nite+ began to judge Israel. And he continued to judge Israel ten years. 12 Then Eʹlon the Ze·buʹlu·nite died and was buried in Aiʹja·lon in the land of Zebʹu·lun.

13 And after him Abʹdon the son of Hilʹlel the Pirʹa·thon·ite+ began to judge Israel. 14 And he came to have forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy full-grown asses.+ And he continued to judge Israel eight years. 15 Then Abʹdon the son of Hilʹlel the Pirʹa·thon·ite died and was buried in Pirʹa·thon in the land of Eʹphra·im in the mountain of the A·malʹek·ite.*+

13 And the sons of Israel engaged again in doing what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes,+ so that Jehovah gave them into the hand of the Phi·lisʹtines+ for forty years.

2 Meanwhile there happened to be a certain man of Zoʹrah+ of the family of the Danʹites,+ and his name was Ma·noʹah.+ And his wife was barren and had borne no child.+ 3 In time Jehovah’s angel appeared to the woman+ and said to her: “Look, now, you are barren and have borne no child. And you will certainly become pregnant and give birth to a son.+ 4 And now watch yourself, please, and do not drink wine or intoxicating liquor,+ and do not eat anything unclean.+ 5 For, look! you will be pregnant,* and you will certainly give birth to a son, and no razor should come upon his head,+ because a Nazʹi·rite+ of God is what the child* will become on leaving the belly;+ and he it is who will take the lead in saving Israel out of the hand of the Phi·lisʹtines.”+

6 Then the woman went and said to her husband: “There was a man of the [true] God that came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of the [true] God,+ very fear-inspiring.+ And I did not ask him from just where he was, neither did he tell me his name.+ 7 But he said to me, ‘Look! You will be pregnant, and you will certainly give birth to a son.+ And now do not drink wine or intoxicating liquor, and do not eat any unclean thing, because a Nazʹi·rite of God is what the child* will become on leaving the belly until the day of his death.’”+

8 And Ma·noʹah began to entreat Jehovah and say: “Excuse me, Jehovah.*+ The man of the [true] God that you just sent, let him, please, come again to us and instruct+ us as to what we ought to do to the child* that will be born.”+ 9 Accordingly the [true] God listened to the voice of Ma·noʹah,+ and the angel of the [true] God came again to the woman while she was sitting in the field, and Ma·noʹah her husband was not with her. 10 Immediately the woman hurried and ran and told her husband+ and said to him: “Look! The man that came the other day to me has appeared to me.”+

11 At that Ma·noʹah got up and accompanied* his wife and came to the man and said to him: “Are you the man that spoke to the woman?”+ to which he said: “I am.” 12 Then Ma·noʹah said: “Now let your words come true. What will become the child’s* mode of life and his work?”+ 13 So Jehovah’s angel said to Ma·noʹah: “From everything that I mentioned to the woman she should keep herself.+ 14 Nothing at all that comes forth from the wine vine should she eat, and no wine or intoxicating liquor let her drink,+ and no unclean thing of any sort let her eat.+ Everything that I have commanded her let her keep.”+

15 Ma·noʹah now said to Jehovah’s angel: “Let us, please, detain you and fix up a kid of the goats before you.”+ 16 But Jehovah’s angel said to Ma·noʹah: “If you detain me, I shall not feed myself on your bread; but if you will render up a burnt offering to Jehovah,+ you may offer it up.” For Ma·noʹah did not know that he was Jehovah’s angel. 17 Then Ma·noʹah said to Jehovah’s angel: “What is your name,+ that when your word comes true we shall certainly do you honor?” 18 However, Jehovah’s angel said to him: “Just why should you ask about my name, when it is a wonderful one?”

19 And Ma·noʹah proceeded to take the kid of the goats and the grain offering and to offer it upon the rock to Jehovah.+ And He was doing something in a wonderful way while Ma·noʹah and his wife were looking on. 20 So it came about that, as the flame ascended from off the altar heavenward, then Jehovah’s angel ascended in the flame of the altar while Ma·noʹah and his wife were looking on.+ At once they fell upon their faces to the earth.+ 21 And Jehovah’s angel did not repeat appearing to Ma·noʹah and his wife anymore. Then it was that Ma·noʹah knew that he had been Jehovah’s angel.+ 22 Consequently Ma·noʹah said to his wife: “We shall positively die,+ because it is God that we have seen.”+ 23 But his wife said to him: “If Jehovah had been delighted only to put us to death, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hand,+ and he would not have shown us all these things, and he would not as now have let us hear anything like this.”+

24 Later the woman gave birth to a son and called his name Samson;+ and the boy kept getting bigger, and Jehovah continued to bless him.+ 25 In time Jehovah’s spirit+ started to impel him in Maʹha·neh-dan*+ between Zoʹrah+ and Eshʹta·ol.+

14 Then Samson went down to Timʹnah+ and saw a woman in Timʹnah of the daughters of the Phi·lisʹtines. 2 So he went up and told his father and his mother and said: “There is a woman that I have seen in Timʹnah of the daughters of the Phi·lisʹtines, and now get her for me as a wife.”+ 3 But his father and his mother said to him: “Is there not among the daughters of your brothers and among all my people a woman,+ so that you are going to take a wife from the uncircumcised Phi·lisʹtines?”+ Still Samson said to his father: “Get just her for me, because she is the one just right in my eyes.” 4 As for his father and his mother, they did not know that that was from Jehovah,+ that he was looking for an opportunity against the Phi·lisʹtines, as at that particular time the Phi·lisʹtines were ruling over Israel.+

5 Accordingly Samson went on down with his father and his mother to Timʹnah.+ When he* got as far as the vineyards of Timʹnah, why, look! a maned young lion roaring upon meeting him. 6 Then Jehovah’s spirit became operative upon him,+ so that he tore it in two, just as someone tears a male kid in two, and there was nothing at all in his hand. And he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 7 And he continued on his way down and began to speak to the woman; and she was still right in Samson’s eyes.+

8 Now after a while he went on back to take her home.+ Meantime he turned aside to look at the carcass of the lion,* and there there was a swarm of bees in the lion’s corpse, and honey.+ 9 So he scraped it out into his palms and walked on, eating as he walked.*+ When he rejoined* his father and his mother, he at once gave them some, and they began to eat. And he did not tell them that it was out of the corpse of the lion that he had scraped the honey.

10 And his father continued on his way down to the woman, and Samson proceeded to hold a banquet there;+ for that was the way the young fellows used to do. 11 And it came about that, on their seeing him, they immediately took thirty groomsmen, that these should keep with him. 12 Then Samson said to them: “Let me, please, propound a riddle to YOU.+ If YOU will without fail tell it to me during the seven days+ of the banquet and YOU do solve it, I shall in that case have to give YOU thirty undergarments and thirty outfits of clothing.+ 13 But if YOU are unable to tell it to me, YOU yourselves also must give me thirty undergarments and thirty outfits of clothing.” At this they said to him: “Do propound your riddle, and let us hear it.” 14 So he said to them:

And they proved unable to tell the riddle for three days. 15 And it came about on the fourth* day that they began to say to Samson’s wife: “Fool your husband that he may tell us the riddle.+ Otherwise we shall burn you and the house of your father with fire.+ Was it to take our possessions+ that YOU people invited us here?” 16 Consequently Samson’s wife began to weep over him+ and to say: “You only hate me, you do, and you do not love me.+ There was a riddle that you propounded to the sons of my people,+ but to me you have not told it.” At this he said to her: “Why, to my own father and my own mother I have not told it,+ and ought I to tell it to you?” 17 But she kept weeping over him the seven days that the banquet continued for them, and it came about on the seventh day that finally he told her, because she had pressured him.+ Then she told the riddle to the sons of her people.+ 18 So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before ever he could go into the interior room:*+

19 And Jehovah’s spirit became operative upon him,+ so that he went down to Ashʹke·lon+ and struck down thirty men of theirs and took what he stripped off them and gave the outfits to the tellers of the riddle.+ And his anger continued hot, and he went his way up to his father’s house.

20 And Samson’s wife+ came to belong to a groomsman+ of his who had associated with him.

15 And it came about after a while, in the days of wheat harvest, that Samson went visiting his wife with a kid+ of the goats. So he said: “I will go in to my wife in the interior room.”+ And her father did not allow him to go in. 2 But her father said: “I really said to myself, ‘You must unquestionably hate her.’+ Hence I gave her to your groomsman.+ Is not her younger sister better than she is? Let her, please, become yours instead of the other.” 3 However, Samson said to them: “This time I must be free of guilt against the Phi·lisʹtines in case I am dealing with them to their injury.”+

4 And Samson went his way and proceeded to catch three hundred foxes*+ and to take torches and turn tail to tail and put one torch between two tails, right in the middle. 5 With that he set fire to the torches and sent them out into the fields of standing grain of the Phi·lisʹtines. Thus he set on fire everything from sheaf to standing grain and the vineyards and the olive groves.+

6 And the Phi·lisʹtines began to say: “Who did this?” Then they said: “It was Samson the son-in-law of the Timʹnite, because he took his wife and then gave her to his groomsman.”+ At that the Phi·lisʹtines went up and burned her and her father with fire.+ 7 In turn Samson said to them: “If YOU do like this, there is nothing but for me to avenge myself upon YOU,+ and afterward I shall quit.” 8 And he went smiting them, piling legs upon thighs with a great slaughter, after which he went down and began to dwell in a cleft of the crag Eʹtam.+

9 Later the Phi·lisʹtines+ came up and camped in Judah+ and went tramping about in Leʹhi.+ 10 Then the men of Judah said: “Why have YOU come up against us?” to which they said: “It is to tie Samson that we have come up, to do to him just as he has done to us.” 11 So three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the crag Eʹtam+ and said to Samson: “Do you not know that the Phi·lisʹtines are ruling over us?+ So what does this mean that you have done to us?” Then he said to them: “Just as they did to me is the way I have done to them.”+ 12 But they said to him: “It is to tie you that we have come down, to give you into the hand of the Phi·lisʹtines.” At that Samson said to them: “Swear to me that YOU yourselves will not assault me.” 13 And they went on to say to him: “No, but we shall merely tie you, and we will give you into their hand; but we shall by no means put you to death.”

Accordingly they bound him with two new ropes+ and brought him up out of the crag. 14 He, for his part, came as far as Leʹhi, and the Phi·lisʹtines, for their part, shouted exultantly at meeting him.+ And Jehovah’s spirit+ became operative upon him, and the ropes that were upon his arms came to be like linen threads that have been scorched with fire,+ so that his fetters melted off his hands. 15 He now found a moist jawbone* of a male ass and thrust his hand out and took it and went striking down a thousand men with it.+ 16 Then Samson said:

“With the jawbone of a male ass—one heap, two heaps!*

With the jawbone of a male ass I have struck down a thousand men.”+

17 And it came about that when he finished speaking, he immediately threw the jawbone out of his hand and called that place Raʹmath-leʹhi.*+ 18 Now he became very thirsty, and he began to call on Jehovah and say: “It was you that gave this great salvation into the hand of your servant,+ and now shall I die of thirst and must I fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?”+ 19 So God* split open a mortar-shaped hollow that was in Leʹhi,* and water+ began to come out of it,* and he proceeded to drink, after which his spirit+ returned and he revived.+ That is why he called its name En-hak·korʹe,* which is in Leʹhi down to this day.

20 And he continued to judge Israel in the days of the Phi·lisʹtines twenty years.+

16 Once Samson went to Gaʹza+ and saw a prostitute woman there and came in to her.+ 2 And report was made* to the Gaʹzites, saying: “Samson has come in here.” So they surrounded him+ and lay in wait for him all night long in the city gate.+ And they kept quiet the whole night, saying: “As soon as the morning gets light, we must also kill him.”+

3 However, Samson kept lying till midnight and then rose at midnight and grabbed hold of the doors of the city gate+ and the two side posts and pulled them out along with the bar and put them upon his shoulders and went carrying+ them up to the top of the mountain that is in front of Heʹbron.*+

4 And it came about after that that he fell in love with a woman in the torrent valley of Soʹrek, and her name was De·liʹlah.+ 5 And the axis lords+ of the Phi·lisʹtines proceeded to come up to her and to say to her: “Fool+ him and see in what his great power is and with what we can prevail over him and with what we are certain to tie him so as to master him; and we, for our part, shall give you each one thousand one hundred silver pieces.”+

6 Later De·liʹlah said to Samson: “Do tell me, please, In what is your great power and with what can you be tied for one to master you?”+ 7 Then Samson said to her: “If they tie me with seven still-moist sinews+ that have not been dried out, I must also grow weak and become like an ordinary man.” 8 So the axis lords+ of the Phi·lisʹtines brought up to her seven still-moist sinews that had not been dried out. Later she tied him with them. 9 Now the ambush was sitting in the interior room of hers,+ and she began to say to him: “The Phi·lisʹtines+ are upon you, Samson!” At that he tore the sinews in two, just as a twisted thread of tow is torn in two when it smells fire.+ And his power did not become known.+

10 Subsequently De·liʹlah+ said to Samson: “Look! You have trifled with me that you might speak lies to me.+ Now tell me, do please, with what you can be tied.” 11 So he said to her: “If they tie me tight with new ropes with which no work has been done, I must also grow weak and become like an ordinary man.” 12 So De·liʹlah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him: “The Phi·lisʹtines are upon you, Samson!” All the while the ambush was sitting in the interior room.+ At that he tore them in two from off his arms like a thread.+

13 After that De·liʹlah said to Samson: “Up till now you have trifled with me that you might speak lies to me.+ Do tell me with what you can be tied.”+ Then he said to her: “If you will weave the seven braids of my head with the warp+ thread.” 14 Accordingly she fixed them with the pin,* after which she said to him: “The Phi·lisʹtines are upon you, Samson!”+ So he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the loom pin and the warp thread.

15 She now said to him: “How dare you say, ‘I do love you,’+ when your heart is not with me? These three times you have trifled with me and have not told me in what your great power is.”+ 16 And it came about that because she pressured+ him with her words all the time and kept urging him, his soul got to be impatient to the point of dying.+ 17 Finally he disclosed to her all his heart+ and said to her: “A razor+ has never come upon my head, because I am a Nazʹi·rite of God from my mother’s belly.+ If I did get shaved, my power also would certainly depart from me, and I should indeed grow weak and become like all other men.”+

18 When De·liʹlah got to see that he had disclosed to her all his heart, she immediately sent and called the Phi·lisʹtine axis+ lords, saying: “Come up this time, for he has disclosed to me all his heart.”+ And the Phi·lisʹtine axis lords came up to her that they might bring up the money in their hand.+ 19 And she proceeded to make him sleep upon her knees. Then she called the man and had him shave off the seven braids of his head, after which she started to show the mastery of him, and his power kept departing from upon him. 20 Now she said: “The Phi·lisʹtines are upon you, Samson!” At that he woke up from his sleep and said: “I shall go out as at other times+ and shake myself free.” And he himself did not know that it was Jehovah that had departed from him.+ 21 So the Phi·lisʹtines grabbed hold of him and bored his eyes out+ and brought him down to Gaʹza+ and bound him with two fetters of copper;+ and he came to be a grinder+ in the prison house.+ 22 Meanwhile the hair of his head started to grow luxuriantly as soon as he had been shaved.+

23 As for the Phi·lisʹtine axis lords, they gathered together to sacrifice a great sacrifice to Daʹgon+ their god* and for rejoicing, and they kept saying: “Our god has given into our hand Samson our enemy!”+ 24 When the people got to see him, they at once gave way to praising their god,+ “because,” said they, “our god has given into our hand our enemy+ and the devastator of our land+ and the one who multiplied our slain.”+

25 And it came about that because their heart was merry,+ they began to say: “Call Samson that he may offer us some amusement.”+ So they called Samson out of the prison house that he might make sport before them;+ and they proceeded to stand him between the pillars. 26 Then Samson said to the boy that was holding him by his hand: “Do permit me to feel the pillars upon which the house is firmly established and let me lean against them.” 27 (Incidentally, the house was full of men and women and all the Phi·lisʹtine axis lords were there;+ and upon the roof there were about three thousand men and women who were looking on while Samson offered some amusement.)+

28 Samson+ now called to Jehovah+ and said: “Sovereign Lord Jehovah,* remember me,+ please, and strengthen+ me, please, just this once, O you the [true] God, and let me avenge myself upon the Phi·lisʹtines with vengeance for one of my two eyes.”*+

29 With that Samson braced himself against the two middle pillars upon which the house was firmly established, and got a grasp on them, one with his right and the other with his left hand. 30 And Samson proceeded to say: “Let my soul die+ with the Phi·lisʹtines.” Then he bent himself with power, and the house went falling upon the axis lords and upon all the people that were in it,+ so that the dead that he put to death in his own death came to be more than those he had put to death during his lifetime.+

31 Later his brothers and all the household of his father came on down and lifted him up and brought him up and buried him between Zoʹrah+ and Eshʹta·ol+ in the burial place of Ma·noʹah+ his father. As for him, he had judged Israel twenty years.+

17 Now there happened to be a man of the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im+ whose name was Miʹcah.* 2 In time he said to his mother: “The thousand one hundred silver pieces that were taken from you and over which you pronounced a curse+ and also said it in my hearing—look! the silver is with me. It was I who took it.”+ At that his mother said: “Blessed may my son be of Jehovah.”+ 3 Accordingly he gave back the thousand one hundred pieces of silver to his mother;+ and his mother went on to say: “I must without fail sanctify the silver to Jehovah from my hand for my son, so as to make a carved image+ and a molten statue;+ and now I shall give it back to you.”*

4 So he returned the silver to his mother, and his mother took two hundred silver pieces and gave them to the silversmith.+ And he went making a carved image+ and a molten statue;+ and it got to be in Miʹcah’s house. 5 As for the man Miʹcah,* he had a house of gods,*+ and he proceeded to make an ephʹod+ and teraphim*+ and to fill the hand of one of his sons with power,*+ that he might serve as priest for him.+ 6 In those days there was no king in Israel.+ As for everybody, what was right in his own eyes he was accustomed to do.+

7 Now there happened to be a young man of Bethʹle·hem+ in Judah of the family of Judah,* and he was a Levite.*+ And he was residing there for a time. 8 And the man proceeded to go from the city of Bethʹle·hem in Judah to reside for a time wherever he might find a place. At length while going his way he came into the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im as far as the house of Miʹcah.+ 9 Then Miʹcah said to him: “Where do you come from?” At that he said to him: “I am a Levite from Bethʹle·hem in Judah, and I am on my way to reside for a time wherever I may find a place.” 10 So Miʹcah said to him: “Do dwell with me and serve as a father+ and priest+ for me, and I, for my part, shall give you ten silver pieces a year and the usual outfit of garments and your sustenance.” Accordingly the Levite went in. 11 Thus the Levite took it upon himself to dwell with the man, and the young man got to be as one of his sons to him. 12 Furthermore, Miʹcah filled the hand of the Levite with power,+ that the young man might serve as a priest+ for him and might continue in the house of Miʹcah. 13 Hence Miʹcah said: “Now I do know that Jehovah will do me good, because the Levite has become priest for me.”+

18 In those days there was no king in Israel.+ And in those days the tribe of the Danʹites+ was looking for an inheritance for itself to dwell there; because up to that day an inheritance had not fallen to them in the midst of the tribes of Israel.+

2 Eventually the sons of Dan sent five men of their family, men from among them, men who were valiant fellows, out from Zoʹrah+ and Eshʹta·ol,+ to spy+ out the land and to explore it. So they said to them: “Go, explore the land.” In time they came into the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im+ as far as the house of Miʹcah+ and got to spend the night there. 3 While they were close by the house of Miʹcah, they recognized the voice of the young man, the Levite, so that they turned aside there. And they proceeded to say to him: “Who brought you here, and what are you doing in this place, and what interest do you have here?” 4 In turn he said to them: “Thus and so Miʹcah did for me that he might hire me,+ and that I might serve as priest+ for him.” 5 Then they said to him: “Inquire,+ please, of God+ that we may know whether our way on which we are going will be successful.” 6 So the priest said to them: “Go in peace. It is before Jehovah that YOUR way is in which YOU go.”

7 Accordingly the five men went on and came to Laʹish+ and saw how the people that were within it were dwelling in self-reliance according to the custom of the Si·doʹni·ans, quiet and unsuspecting,+ and there was no oppressive conqueror* that was molesting a thing in the land, while they were far off from the Si·doʹni·ans+ and they had nothing to do with mankind.*

8 At length they came to their brothers at Zoʹrah+ and Eshʹta·ol,+ and their brothers began to say to them: “How was it with YOU?” 9 At this they said: “Do get up, and let us go up against them; for we have seen the land, and, look! it is very good.+ And YOU are hesitant. Do not be sluggish about walking to come in to take possession of the land.+ 10 When YOU come in, YOU will come to an unsuspecting people,+ and the land is quite wide;* for God* has given it into YOUR hand,+ a place where there is no lack of any sort of thing that is in the earth.”+

11 Then six hundred men girded with weapons of war, out of the family of the Danʹites,+ departed from there, that is, from Zoʹrah and Eshʹta·ol.+ 12 And they got on their way up and went camping at Kirʹi·ath-jeʹa·rim+ in Judah. That is why they have called that place Maʹha·neh-dan*+ down to this day. Look! It is west* of Kirʹi·ath-jeʹa·rim. 13 After that they passed along from there to the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im and came as far as the house of Miʹcah.+

14 Then the five men that had gone to spy out+ the land of Laʹish+ answered and said to their brothers: “Did YOU know that there are in these houses an ephʹod and teraphim+ and a carved image+ and a molten statue?+ And now have in mind what YOU ought to do.”+ 15 So they turned aside there and came to the house of the young man, the Levite,+ at the house of Miʹcah, and began to ask how he was getting+ along. 16 All the while the six hundred men girded with their weapons of war,+ who were of the sons of Dan,+ were standing at the entrance of the gate. 17 The five men that had gone to spy out the land+ now went on up, that they might enter in there to take* the carved image+ and the ephʹod+ and the teraphim+ and the molten image.+ (And the priest+ was standing at the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men girded with weapons of war.)* 18 And these went into the house of Miʹcah and proceeded to take the carved image, the ephʹod and the teraphim and the molten image.+ At that the priest+ said to them: “What are YOU doing?” 19 But they said to him: “Be quiet. Put your hand over your mouth, and go with us and become a father+ and a priest+ for us. Which is better, for you to continue a priest to the house of one+ man or for you to become a priest to a tribe and family in Israel?”+ 20 At this the heart of the priest was pleased,+ and he now took the ephʹod and the teraphim and the carved image+ and came into the midst of the people.

21 Then they turned and went their way and put the little ones and the livestock and the valuable things ahead of them.+ 22 They themselves had got a distance away from the house of Miʹcah when the men who were in the houses that were close by the house of Miʹcah+ were called together and tried to catch up with the sons of Dan. 23 When they kept crying out to the sons of Dan, then they turned their faces and said to Miʹcah: “What is the matter with you+ that you have been called together?” 24 So he said: “My gods+ that I made+ YOU have taken, the priest+ too, and YOU go YOUR way, and what do I have anymore?+ How, then, is it that YOU can say to me, ‘What is the matter with you?’” 25 At this the sons of Dan said to him: “Do not let your voice be heard close to us, for fear that men bitter of soul+ may assault YOU people, and you have to forfeit your own soul* and the soul of your household.” 26 And the sons of Dan kept going on their way; and Miʹcah got to see that they were stronger than he was,+ and so he turned and went back to his house.

27 As for them, they took what Miʹcah had made and the priest+ that had become his, and they kept going toward Laʹish,+ against a people quiet and unsuspecting.+ And they proceeded to strike them with the edge of the sword,+ and the city they burned with fire.+ 28 And there was no deliverer, for it was far away from Siʹdon,+ and they had nothing at all to do with mankind; and it was in the low plain that belonged to Beth-reʹhob.+ Then they built the city and took up dwelling in it.+ 29 Furthermore, they called the name of the city Dan by the name of their father, Dan,+ who had been born to Israel.+ Nevertheless, Laʹish was the city’s name at first.+ 30 After that the sons of Dan stood up the carved image+ for themselves; and Jonʹa·than*+ the son of Gerʹshom,+ Moses’* son, he and his sons became priests to the tribe of the Danʹites until the day of the land’s* being taken into exile.+ 31 And they kept the carved image of Miʹcah, which he had made, set up for themselves all the days that the house+ of the [true] God continued in Shiʹloh.+

19 Now it happened in those days that there was no king in Israel.+ And it came about that a certain Levite was residing for a time in the remotest parts of the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im.+ In time he took as his wife a concubine+ from Bethʹle·hem+ in Judah. 2 And his concubine began to commit fornication*+ against him.* Finally she went away from him to the house of her father at Bethʹle·hem in Judah and continued there fully four months. 3 Then her husband got up and went after her to speak consolingly to her* so as to bring her back; and there were with him his attendant*+ and a couple of he-asses. So she had him come into her father’s house. When the father of the young woman got to see him, he at once rejoiced to meet him. 4 Consequently his father-in-law, the young woman’s father, took hold of him, so that he continued to dwell with him three days; and they would eat and drink, and he* would stay overnight there.+

5 And it came about on the fourth day, when they got up early in the morning as usual, he now rose to go, but the father of the young woman said to his son-in-law: “Sustain your heart with a bit of bread+ and afterward YOU people may go.” 6 So they sat down, and both of them began to eat and to drink together; after which the father of the young woman said to the man: “Come on, please, and stay overnight,+ and let your heart feel good.”+ 7 When the man rose to go, his father-in-law kept begging him, so that he stayed overnight there again.+

8 When he got up early in the morning on the fifth day to go, the father of the young woman then said: “Please, take sustenance for your heart.”+ And they lingered until the fading away of the day. And both of them kept eating. 9 The man+ now rose to go, he and his concubine+ and his attendant;+ but his father-in-law, the young woman’s father, said to him: “Look, now! The day has declined toward becoming evening. Please, STAY overnight.+ Here the day is settling down. Stay here overnight, and let your heart feel good.+ And tomorrow YOU people must get up early for YOUR journey, and you must go to your tent.” 10 However, the man did not consent to stay overnight, but he rose and got on his way and came as far as in front of Jeʹbus,+ that is to say, Jerusalem;+ and with him there were the couple of he-asses saddled up, and his concubine and his attendant.*

11 While they were close by Jeʹbus, as the daylight had gone down considerably,+ the attendant now said to his master:* “O come, now, and let us turn aside to this city of the Jebʹu·sites+ and stay in it overnight.” 12 But his master said to him: “Let us not turn aside to a city of foreigners+ who are no part of the sons of Israel; and we have to pass on as far as Gibʹe·ah.”+ 13 And he went on to say to his attendant: “Come and let us approach one of the places, and we must stay overnight either in Gibʹe·ah or in Raʹmah.”+ 14 So they passed along and kept on their way, and the sun began to set upon them when near to Gibʹe·ah, which belongs to Benjamin.

15 Consequently they turned aside there to go in to stay overnight in Gibʹe·ah. And they* proceeded to go in and sit down in the public square of the city, and there was nobody taking them on into the house to stay overnight.+ 16 Eventually, look! an old man coming in from his work in the field at evening,+ and the man was from the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im,+ and he was residing for a time in Gibʹe·ah; but the men of the place were Benʹja·mites.+ 17 When he raised his eyes he got to see the man, the traveler, in the public square of the city. So the old man said: “Where are you going, and where do you come from?”+ 18 In turn he said to him: “We are passing along from Bethʹle·hem in Judah to the remotest parts of the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im.+ That is where I am from, but I went to Bethʹle·hem in Judah;+ and it is to my own house* that I am going, and there is nobody taking me on into the house.+ 19 And there are both straw and fodder+ for our he-asses, and there are both bread+ and wine for me and your slave girl+ and for the attendant+ with your servant.* There is no lack of a single thing.” 20 However, the old man said: “May you have peace!*+ Just let any lack of yours be upon me.+ Only do not stay overnight in the public square.” 21 With that he brought him into his house+ and threw mash to the he-asses.+ Then they washed their feet+ and began to eat and drink.

22 While they were making their hearts feel good,+ look! the men of the city, mere good-for-nothing men,*+ surrounded the house,+ shoving one another against the door; and they kept saying to the old man, the owner of the house: “Bring out the man that came into your house, that we may have intercourse with him.”+ 23 At that the owner of the house went on out to them and said to them:+ “No, my brothers,+ do not do anything wrong, please, since this man has come into my house. Do not commit this disgraceful folly.+ 24 Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine. Let me bring them out, please, and YOU rape them+ and do to them what is good in YOUR eyes. But to this man YOU must not do this disgraceful, foolish thing.”

25 And the men did not want to listen to him. Hence the man took hold of his concubine+ and brought her forth to them outside; and they began to have intercourse with her,+ and kept on abusing+ her all night long until the morning, after which they sent her off at the ascending of the dawn. 26 Then the woman came as it was turning to morning, and fell down at the entrance of the man’s house where her master was,+—until daylight. 27 Later her master rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to get on his way, and, look! the woman, his concubine,+ fallen at the entrance of the house with her hands upon the threshold! 28 So he said to her: “Rise up, and let us go.” But there was no one answering.+ At that the man took her upon the ass and rose up and went to his place.+

29 Then he entered his house and took the slaughtering knife and laid hold of his concubine and cut her up according to her bones into twelve pieces+ and sent her into every territory of Israel.+ 30 And it occurred that everybody seeing it said: “Such a thing as this has never been brought about or been seen from the day that the sons of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt down to this day. Set YOUR hearts* upon it, take counsel+ and speak.”

20 Consequently all the sons of Israel went out+ and the assembly congregated themselves as one man,+ from Dan+ down to Beʹer-sheʹba*+ along with the land of Gilʹe·ad,+ to Jehovah at Mizʹpah.+ 2 So the keymen* of all the people and all the tribes of Israel took their station in the congregation* of the people of the [true] God,+ four hundred thousand men on foot who drew the sword.+

3 And the sons of Benjamin got to hear that the sons of Israel had gone up to Mizʹpah.+

Then the sons of Israel said: “SPEAK. How has this bad thing been brought about?”+ 4 At this the man, the Levite,+ the husband of the murdered woman, answered and said: “It was to Gibʹe·ah,+ which belongs to Benjamin, that I came, I and my concubine,+ to stay overnight. 5 And the landowners of Gibʹe·ah proceeded to rise up against me and to surround the house against me by night. It was I that they figured on killing, but it was my concubine that they raped,+ and she gradually died.+ 6 Hence I grasped my concubine and cut her up and sent her into every field of Israel’s inheritance,+ because they had carried on loose conduct+ and disgraceful folly in Israel.+ 7 Look! All YOU sons of Israel, give YOUR word and counsel+ here.”

8 So all the people rose up as one man,+ saying: “We shall not go any of us to his tent, nor shall we turn aside any of us to his house.+ 9 And now this is the thing that we shall do to Gibʹe·ah. Let us go up* by lot+ against it. 10 And we must take ten men out of a hundred of all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred out of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand, to procure provisions for the people, that they may take action by going against Gibʹe·ah* of Benjamin, in view of all the disgraceful folly+ that they* did in Israel.” 11 Thus all the men of Israel were gathered against the city as one man, as allies.

12 Accordingly the tribes of Israel sent men to all the tribesmen* of Benjamin,+ saying: “What is this bad thing that has been brought about among YOU?+ 13 And now give over the men,+ the good-for-nothing men,+ that are in Gibʹe·ah,+ that we may put them to death,+ and let us clear out what is bad from Israel.”+ And the sons of Benjamin* did not want to listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel.+

14 Then the sons of Benjamin went gathering together out of the cities to Gibʹe·ah to go out to battle against the sons of Israel. 15 So the sons of Benjamin got to be mustered on that day from the cities, twenty-six thousand men drawing sword,+ apart from the inhabitants of Gibʹe·ah, of whom seven hundred chosen men were mustered. 16 Out of all this people there were seven hundred chosen men left-handed.*+ Every one of these was a slinger of stones+ to a hairbreadth and would not miss.

17 And the men of Israel were mustered apart from Benjamin, four hundred thousand men drawing sword.+ Every one of these was a man of war. 18 And they proceeded to rise up and go on up to Bethʹel and to inquire of God.+ Then the sons of Israel said: “Who of us should go up in the lead to the battle against the sons of Benjamin?”+ To this Jehovah said: “Judah in the lead.”+

19 After that the sons of Israel rose up in the morning and camped against Gibʹe·ah.

20 The men of Israel now went out to battle against Benjamin; and the men of Israel proceeded to draw up in battle formation against them at Gibʹe·ah. 21 So the sons of Benjamin came on out from Gibʹe·ah+ and brought twenty-two thousand men in Israel down to ruin to the earth on that day.+ 22 However, the people, the men of Israel, showed themselves courageous and again went drawing up in battle formation in the place where they had drawn up in formation on the first day. 23 Then the sons of Israel went up and wept+ before Jehovah until the evening and inquired of Jehovah, saying: “Shall I again approach for battle against the sons of Benjamin my brother?”+ To this Jehovah said: “Go up against him.”

24 Accordingly the sons of Israel drew near to the sons of Benjamin on the second day.+ 25 In turn Benjamin came on out from Gibʹe·ah to meet them on the second day and brought a further eighteen thousand men among the sons of Israel down to ruin to the earth,+ all of these drawing sword.+ 26 At that all the sons of Israel,+ even all the people, went on up and came to Bethʹel* and wept+ and sat there before Jehovah and fasted+ on that day until the evening and offered up burnt offerings+ and communion offerings+ before Jehovah. 27 After that the sons of Israel inquired of Jehovah,+ as it was there that the ark of the covenant+ of the [true] God was in those days. 28 Now Phinʹe·has+ the son of El·e·aʹzar, the son of Aaron, was standing before it in those days,+ saying: “Shall I go out yet again to battle against the sons of Benjamin my brother or shall I cease to?”+ To this Jehovah said: “Go up, because tomorrow I shall give him into your hand.”+ 29 Then Israel set men in ambush+ against Gibʹe·ah all around.

30 And the sons of Israel proceeded to go up against the sons of Benjamin on the third day, and to draw up in formation against Gibʹe·ah the same as at the other times.+ 31 When the sons of Benjamin went on out to meet the people, they were drawn away from the city.+ Then, the same as at the other times, they started to strike down some of the people mortally wounded on the highways, one of which goes up to Bethʹel+ and the other to Gibʹe·ah,+ in the field, about thirty men in Israel.+ 32 So the sons of Benjamin began to say: “They are suffering defeat before us the same as at the first.”+ As for the sons of Israel, they said: “Let us flee,+ and we shall certainly draw them away from the city onto the highways.” 33 And all the men of Israel rose up from their places and went drawing up in formation at Baʹal-taʹmar, while those of Israel in ambush+ were making a charge out of their places in the vicinity of Gibʹe·ah.+ 34 Thus ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel came in front of Gibʹe·ah, and the fighting was heavy; and the Benʹja·mites* did not know that calamity+ was impending over them.

35 And Jehovah proceeded to defeat Benjamin+ before Israel, so that the sons of Israel on that day brought down to ruin in Benjamin twenty-five thousand one hundred men, all of these drawing sword.+

36 However, the sons of Benjamin imagined that the men of Israel faced defeat when they kept giving ground+ to Benjamin because they trusted in the ambush that they had set against Gibʹe·ah. 37 As for the ambush, they acted quickly and went dashing toward Gibʹe·ah.+ Then the ambush+ spread out and struck all the city with the edge of the sword.+

38 Now the men of Israel had come to the arrangement with the ambush* for them to make a smoke signal* go up from the city.+

39 When the sons of Israel turned around in the battle, Benjamin started to strike down about thirty men mortally wounded among the men of Israel,+ for they said: “They are unquestionably suffering nothing but defeat before us just as in the first battle.”+ 40 And the signal+ started to go up from the city as a pillar of smoke.+ So when Benjamin turned his face back, look! the whole city went up heavenward.+ 41 And the men of Israel made an about-face,+ and the men of Benjamin were disturbed,+ for they saw that calamity had reached them.+ 42 Hence they turned before the men of Israel in the direction of the wilderness, and the battle followed them up closely, while the men from out of the cities were bringing them down to ruin in their midst. 43 They surrounded Benjamin.+ They pursued him without a place to rest.+ They trampled him down directly in front of Gibʹe·ah+ toward the rising of the sun. 44 Finally there fell eighteen thousand men of Benjamin, all of these being valiant men.+

45 Thus they turned and went fleeing to the wilderness to the crag of Rimʹmon.+ And they made a gleaning of five thousand men of them on the highways,+ and they kept following closely after them as far as Giʹdom and so struck down two thousand more men of them. 46 And all those of Benjamin that fell on that day amounted at last to twenty-five thousand men drawing sword,+ all these being valiant men. 47 But six hundred men turned and went fleeing to the wilderness to the crag of Rimʹmon, and they continued to dwell on the crag of Rimʹmon+ four months.

48 And the men of Israel came back against the sons of Benjamin and went striking with the edge of the sword those of the city, [from] men to domestic animal up to all that were found.+ Also, all the cities that were found they consigned to the fire.+

21 Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizʹpah,+ saying: “Not a man of us will give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife.”+ 2 Consequently the people came to Bethʹel+ and kept sitting there before the [true] God+ until the evening and continued to raise their voice and indulge in a great deal of weeping.+ 3 And they would say: “Why, O Jehovah the God of Israel, has this occurred in Israel, for one tribe to be missing today from Israel?”+ 4 And it came about the next day that the people proceeded to get up early and to build an altar there and to offer up burnt offerings+ and communion offerings.+

5 Then the sons of Israel said: “Who is there out of all the tribes of Israel that has not come up in the congregation* to Jehovah, for there is a great oath+ that has taken place respecting the one that has not come up to Jehovah at Mizʹpah, saying, ‘Let him be put to death without fail.’”+ 6 And the sons of Israel began to feel regret over Benjamin their brother. So they said: “Today one tribe has been chopped off from Israel. 7 What shall we do to those who are left over as to wives, now that we ourselves have sworn+ by Jehovah not to give them any of our daughters as wives?”+

8 And they went on to say: “Which one out of the tribes of Israel is it that has not come up to Jehovah at Mizʹpah?”+ And, look! no one had come into the camp from Jaʹbesh-gilʹe·ad+ to the congregation. 9 When the people were counted, well, look! there was not a man there from the inhabitants of Jaʹbesh-gilʹe·ad. 10 Hence the assembly proceeded to send twelve thousand of the most valiant men* there and to command them, saying: “Go, and YOU must strike the inhabitants of Jaʹbesh-gilʹe·ad with the edge of the sword, even the women* and the little ones.+ 11 And this is the thing that YOU should do: Every male and every woman that has experienced lying with a male YOU should devote to destruction.”+ 12 However, they found out of the inhabitants of Jaʹbesh-gilʹe·ad+ four hundred girls, virgins,+ that had not had intercourse with a man by lying with a male. So they brought them to the camp at Shiʹloh,+ which is in the land of Caʹnaan.

13 And all the assembly now sent and spoke to the sons of Benjamin that were on the crag of Rimʹmon+ and offered them peace. 14 Accordingly Benjamin came back at that time. Then they gave them the women that they had preserved alive from the women of Jaʹbesh-gilʹe·ad;+ but they did not find enough for them.+ 15 And the people felt regret over Benjamin+ because Jehovah had made a rupture between the tribes of Israel. 16 Consequently the older men of the assembly said: “What shall we do to the men that are left over as to wives, for womankind has been annihilated out of Benjamin?” 17 Then they said: “There should be a possession for those who have escaped of Benjamin,+ that a tribe might not be wiped out of Israel. 18 As for us, we are not allowed to give them wives from our daughters, because the sons of Israel have sworn, saying, ‘Cursed is the one that gives a wife to Benjamin.’”+

19 Finally they said: “Look! There is a festival of Jehovah from year to year in Shiʹloh,+ which is to the north of Bethʹel, toward the east of the highway that goes up from Bethʹel to Sheʹchem+ and toward the south of Le·boʹnah.” 20 So they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying: “Go, and YOU must lie in wait in the vineyards. 21 And YOU must look, and, there now, when the daughters of Shiʹloh come on out to dance+ in circle dances, YOU must also come out from the vineyards and carry off for yourselves by force each one his wife from the daughters of Shiʹloh, and YOU must go to the land of Benjamin. 22 And it must occur that should their fathers or their brothers come to conduct a legal case against us,* we* also shall certainly say to them, ‘Do us a favor for their sakes, because we have not taken for each one his wife by war,+ for it was not YOU that did the giving to them at a time when YOU* would become guilty.’”+

23 Accordingly the sons of Benjamin did just that way, and they proceeded to carry off wives for their number+ from the women dancing+ around, whom they snatched away; after which they went off and returned to their inheritance and built the cities+ and took up dwelling in them.

24 And the sons of Israel began to disperse from there at that time, each one to his own tribe and his own family; and they went their way out from there, each one to his own inheritance.+

25 In those days there was no king in Israel.+ What was right in his own eyes was what each one was accustomed to do.+