Bible in 90 Days

²⁸ “Follow me,” he told them, “for the Lord has put your enemies, the Moabites, at your mercy!”

The army then proceeded to seize the fords of the Jordan River near Moab, preventing anyone from crossing. ²⁹ Then they attacked the Moabites and killed about ten thousand of the strongest and most skillful of their fighting men, letting not one escape. ³⁰ So Moab was conquered by Israel that day, and the land was at peace for the next eighty years.

³¹ The next judge after Ehud was Shamgar (son of Anath). He once killed six hundred Philistines with an ox goad, thereby saving Israel from disaster.

4 After Ehud’s death the people of Israel again sinned against the Lord, ^2-3 so the Lord let them be conquered by King Jabin of Hazor, in Canaan. The commander-in-chief of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoiim. He had nine hundred iron chariots and made life unbearable for the Israelis for twenty years. But finally they begged the Lord for help.

⁴ Israel’s leader at that time, the one who was responsible for bringing the people back to God, was Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth. ⁵ She held court at a place now called “Deborah’s Palm Tree,” between Ramah and Bethel, in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came to her to decide their disputes.^[a]

⁶ One day she summoned Barak (son of Abinoam), who lived in Kedesh, in the land of Naphtali, and said to him, “The Lord God of Israel has commanded you to mobilize ten thousand men from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun. Lead them to Mount Tabor ⁷ to fight King Jabin’s mighty army with all his chariots, under General Sisera’s command. The Lord says, ‘I will draw them to the Kishon River, and you will defeat them there.’”

⁸ “I’ll go, but only if you go with me!” Barak told her.

⁹ “All right,” she replied, “I’ll go with you; but I’m warning you now that the honor of conquering Sisera will go to a woman instead of to you!” So she went with him to Kedesh.

¹⁰ When Barak summoned the men of Zebulun and Naphtali to mobilize at Kedesh, ten thousand men volunteered. And Deborah marched with them. ¹¹ (Heber, the Kenite—the Kenites were the descendants of Moses’ father-in-law Hobab—had moved away from the rest of his clan, and had been living in various places as far away as the Oak of Zaanannim, near Kedesh.) ¹² When General Sisera was told that Barak and his army were camped at Mount Tabor, ¹³ he mobilized his entire army, including the nine hundred iron chariots, and marched from Harosheth-hagoiim to the Kishon River.

¹⁴ Then Deborah said to Barak, “Now is the time for action! The Lord leads on! He has already delivered Sisera into your hand!”

So Barak led his ten thousand men down the slopes of Mount Tabor into battle.

¹⁵ Then the Lord threw the enemy into a panic, both the soldiers and the charioteers, and Sisera leaped from his chariot and escaped on foot. ¹⁶ Barak and his men chased the enemy and the chariots as far as Harosheth-hagoiim, until all of Sisera’s army was destroyed; not one man was left alive. ¹⁷ Meanwhile, Sisera had escaped to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was a mutual-assistance agreement between King Jabin of Hazor and the clan of Heber.

¹⁸ Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come into my tent, sir. You will be safe here in our protection. Don’t be afraid.” So he went into her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.

¹⁹ “Please give me some water,” he said, “for I am very thirsty.” So she gave him some milk and covered him again.

²⁰ “Stand in the door of the tent,” he told her, “and if anyone comes by, looking for me, tell them that no one is here.”

²¹ Then Jael took a sharp tent peg and a hammer and, quietly creeping up to him as he slept, she drove the peg through his temples and into the ground; and so he died, for he was fast asleep from weariness.

²² When Barak came by looking for Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said, “Come, and I will show you the man you are looking for.”

So he followed her into the tent and found Sisera lying there dead, with the tent peg through his temples. ²³ So that day the Lord used Israel to subdue King Jabin of Canaan. ²⁴ And from that time on Israel became stronger and stronger against King Jabin, until he and all his people were destroyed.

5 Then Deborah and Barak sang this song about the wonderful victory:

After that there was peace in the land for forty years.

6 Then the people of Israel began once again to worship other gods, and once again the Lord let their enemies harass them. This time it was by the people of Midian, for seven years. ² The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelis took to the mountains, living in caves and dens. ^3-4 When they planted their seed, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and other neighboring nations came and destroyed their crops and plundered the countryside as far away as Gaza, leaving nothing to eat and taking away all their sheep, oxen, and donkeys. ⁵ These enemy hordes arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count and stayed until the land was completely stripped and devastated. ^6-7 So Israel was reduced to abject poverty because of the Midianites. Then at last the people of Israel began to cry out to the Lord for help.

⁸ However, the Lord’s reply through the prophet he sent to them was this: “The Lord God of Israel brought you out of slavery in Egypt, ⁹ and rescued you from the Egyptians and from all who were cruel to you, and drove out your enemies before you, and gave you their land. ¹⁰ He told you he is the Lord your God, and you must not worship the gods of the Amorites who live around you on every side. But you have not listened to him.”

¹¹ But one day the Angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the oak tree at Ophrah, on the farm of Joash the Abiezrite. Joash’s son, Gideon, had been threshing wheat by hand in the bottom of a grape press—a pit where grapes were pressed to make wine—for he was hiding from the Midianites.

¹² The Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty soldier, the Lord is with you!”

¹³ “Stranger,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors have told us about—such as when God brought them out of Egypt? Now the Lord has thrown us away and has let the Midianites completely ruin us.”

¹⁴ Then the Lord turned to him and said, “I will make you strong! Go and save Israel from the Midianites! I am sending you!”

¹⁵ But Gideon replied, “Sir, how can I save Israel? My family is the poorest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least thought of in the entire family!”

¹⁶ Whereupon the Lord said to him, “But I, Jehovah,^[b] will be with you! And you shall quickly destroy the Midianite hordes!”

¹⁷ Gideon replied, “If it is really true that you are going to help me like that, then do some miracle to prove it! Prove that it is really Jehovah who is talking to me! ¹⁸ But stay here until I go and get a present for you.”

“All right,” the Angel agreed. “I’ll stay here until you return.”

¹⁹ Gideon hurried home and roasted a young goat and baked some unleavened bread from a bushel of flour. Then, carrying the meat in a basket and broth in a pot, he took it out to the Angel, who was beneath the oak tree, and presented it to him.

²⁰ The Angel said to him, “Place the meat and the bread upon that rock over there, and pour the broth over it.”

When Gideon had followed these instructions, ²¹ the Angel touched the meat and bread with his staff, and fire flamed up from the rock and consumed them! And suddenly the Angel was gone!

²² When Gideon realized that it had indeed been the Angel of the Lord, he cried out, “Alas, O Lord God, for I have seen the Angel of the Lord face-to-face!”

²³ “It’s all right,” the Lord replied. “Don’t be afraid! You shall not die.”

²⁴ And Gideon built an altar there and named it “The Altar of Peace with Jehovah.” (The altar is still there in Ophrah in the land of the Abiezrites.) ²⁵ That night the Lord told Gideon to hitch his father’s best ox to the family altar of Baal and pull it down, and to cut down the wooden idol of the goddess Asherah that stood nearby.

²⁶ “Replace it with an altar for the Lord your God, built here on this hill, laying the stones carefully. Then sacrifice the ox as a burnt offering to the Lord, using the wooden idol as wood for the fire on the altar.”

²⁷ So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord had commanded. But he did it at night for fear of the other members of his father’s household, and for fear of the men of the city; for he knew what would happen if they found out who did it! ²⁸ Early the next morning, as the city began to stir, someone discovered that the altar of Baal was knocked apart, the idol beside it was gone, and a new altar had been built instead, with the remains of a sacrifice on it.

²⁹ “Who did this?” everyone demanded. Finally they learned that it was Gideon, the son of Joash.

³⁰ “Bring out your son,” they shouted to Joash. “He must die for insulting the altar of Baal and for cutting down the Asherah idol.”

³¹ But Joash retorted to the whole mob, “Does Baal need your help? What an insult to a god! You are the ones who should die for insulting Baal! If Baal is really a god, let him take care of himself and destroy the one who broke apart his altar!”

³² From then on Gideon was called “Jerubbaal,” a nickname meaning “Let Baal take care of himself!”^[c]

³³ Soon afterward the armies of Midian, Amalek, and other neighboring nations united in one vast alliance against Israel. They crossed the Jordan and camped in the valley of Jezreel. ³⁴ Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet as a call to arms, and the men of Abiezer came to him. ³⁵ He also sent messengers throughout Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, summoning their fighting forces, and all of them responded.

³⁶ Then Gideon said to God, “If you are really going to use me to save Israel as you promised, ³⁷ prove it to me in this way: I’ll put some wool on the threshing floor tonight, and if, in the morning, the fleece is wet and the ground is dry, I will know you are going to help me!”

³⁸ And it happened just that way! When he got up the next morning, he pressed the fleece together and wrung out a whole bowlful of water!

³⁹ Then Gideon said to the Lord, “Please don’t be angry with me, but let me make one more test: this time let the fleece remain dry while the ground around it is wet!”

⁴⁰ So the Lord did as he asked; that night the fleece stayed dry, but the ground was covered with dew!

7 Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon—his other name) and his army got an early start and went as far as the spring of Harod. The armies of Midian were camped north of them, down in the valley beside the hill of Moreh.

² The Lord then said to Gideon, “There are too many of you! I can’t let all of you fight the Midianites, for then the people of Israel will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength! ³ Send home any of your men who are timid and frightened.”

So twenty-two thousand of them left, and only ten thousand remained who were willing to fight.

⁴ But the Lord told Gideon, “There are still too many! Bring them down to the spring and I’ll show you which ones shall go with you and which ones shall not.”

^5-6 So Gideon assembled them at the water. There the Lord told him, “Divide them into two groups decided by the way they drink. In Group 1 will be all the men who cup the water in their hands to get it to their mouths and lap it like dogs. In Group 2 will be those who kneel, with their mouths in the stream.”

Only three hundred of the men drank from their hands; all the others drank with their mouths to the stream.

⁷ “I’ll conquer the Midianites with these three hundred!” the Lord told Gideon. “Send all the others home!”

^8-9 So after Gideon had collected all the clay jars and trumpets they had among them, he sent them home, leaving only three hundred men with him.

During the night, with the Midianites camped in the valley just below, the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up! Take your troops and attack the Midianites, for I will cause you to defeat them! ¹⁰ But if you are afraid, first go down to the camp alone—take along your servant Purah if you like— ¹¹ and listen to what they are saying down there! You will be greatly encouraged and be eager to attack!”

So he took Purah and crept down through the darkness to the outposts of the enemy camp. ^12-13 The vast armies of Midian, Amalek, and the other nations of the Mideast were crowded across the valley like locusts—yes, like the sand upon the seashore—and there were too many camels even to count! Gideon crept up to one of the tents just as a man inside had wakened from a nightmare and was telling his tent-mate about it.

“I had this strange dream,” he was saying, “and there was this huge loaf of barley bread that came tumbling down into our camp. It hit our tent and knocked it flat!”

¹⁴ The other soldier replied, “Your dream can mean only one thing! Gideon, the son of Joash, the Israeli, is going to come and massacre all the allied forces of Midian!”

¹⁵ When Gideon heard the dream and the interpretation, all he could do was just stand there worshiping God! Then he returned to his men and shouted, “Get up! For the Lord is going to use you to conquer all the vast armies of Midian!”

¹⁶ He divided the three hundred men into three groups and gave each man a trumpet and a clay jar with a torch in it. ¹⁷ Then he explained his plan. “When we arrive at the outer guardposts of the camp,” he told them, “do just as I do. ¹⁸ As soon as I and the men in my group blow our trumpets, you blow yours on all sides of the camp and shout, ‘We fight for God and for Gideon!’”

^19-20 It was just after midnight and the change of guards when Gideon and the hundred men with him crept to the outer edge of the camp of Midian.

Suddenly they blew their trumpets and broke their clay jars so that their torches blazed into the night. Then the other two hundred of his men did the same, blowing the trumpets in their right hands, and holding the flaming torches in their left hands, all shouting, “For the Lord and for Gideon!”^[d]

²¹ Then they just stood and watched as the whole vast enemy army began rushing around in a panic, shouting and running away. ²² For in the confusion the Lord caused the enemy troops to begin fighting and killing each other from one end of the camp to the other, and they fled into the night to places as far away as Beth-shittah near Zererah, and to the border of Abel-meholah near Tabbath.

²³ Then Gideon sent for the troops of Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh and told them to come and chase and destroy the fleeing army of Midian. ²⁴ Gideon also sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim summoning troops who seized the fords of the Jordan River at Beth-barah, thus preventing the Midianites from escaping by going across. ²⁵ Oreb and Zeeb, the two generals of Midian, were captured. Oreb was killed at the rock now known by his name, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb, as it is now called; and the Israelis took the heads of Oreb and Zeeb across the Jordan to Gideon.

8 But the tribal leaders of Ephraim were violently angry with Gideon.

“Why didn’t you send for us when you first went out to fight the Midianites?” they demanded.

^2-3 But Gideon replied, “God let you capture Oreb and Zeeb, the generals of the army of Midian! What have I done in comparison with that? Your actions at the end of the battle were more important than ours at the beginning!”^[e] So they calmed down.

⁴ Gideon now crossed the Jordan River with his three hundred men. They were very tired, but still chasing the enemy. ⁵ He asked the men of Succoth for food. “We are weary from chasing after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian,” he said.

⁶ But the leaders of Succoth replied, “You haven’t caught them yet!^[f] If we feed you and you fail, they’ll return and destroy us.”

⁷ Then Gideon warned them, “When the Lord has delivered them to us, I will return and tear your flesh with the thorns and briars of the wilderness.”

⁸ Then he went up to Penuel and asked for food there, but got the same answer. ⁹ And he said to them also, “When this is all over, I will return and break down this tower.”

¹⁰ By this time King Zebah and King Zalmunna with a remnant of fifteen thousand troops were in Karkor. That was all that was left of the allied armies of the east; for one hundred twenty thousand had already been killed. ¹¹ Then Gideon circled around by the caravan route east of Nobah and Jogbehah, striking at the Midianite army in surprise raids. ¹² The two kings fled, but Gideon chased and captured them, routing their entire force. ¹³ Later, Gideon returned by way of Heres Pass. ¹⁴ There he captured a young fellow from Succoth and demanded that he write down the names of all the seventy-seven political and religious leaders of the city.

¹⁵ He then returned to Succoth. “You taunted me that I would never catch King Zebah and King Zalmunna, and you refused to give us food when we were tired and hungry,” he said. “Well, here they are!”

¹⁶ Then he took the leaders of the city and scraped them to death^[g] with wild thorns and briars. ¹⁷ He also went to Penuel and knocked down the city tower and killed the entire male population.

¹⁸ Then Gideon asked King Zebah and King Zalmunna, “The men you killed at Tabor—what were they like?”

They replied, “They were dressed just like you—like sons of kings!”

¹⁹ “They must have been my brothers!” Gideon exclaimed. “I swear that if you hadn’t killed them I wouldn’t kill you.”

²⁰ Then, turning to Jether, his oldest son, he instructed him to kill them. But the boy was only a lad and was afraid to.

²¹ Then Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, “You do it; we’d rather be killed by a man!”^[h] So Gideon killed them and took the ornaments from their camels’ necks.

²² Now the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Be our king! You and your sons and all your descendants shall be our rulers, for you have saved us from Midian.”

^23-24 But Gideon replied, “I will not be your king, nor shall my son; the Lord is your King! However, I have one request. Give me all the earrings collected from your fallen foes”—for the troops of Midian, being Ishmaelites, all wore gold earrings.

²⁵ “Gladly!” they replied, and spread out a sheet for everyone to throw in the gold earrings he had gathered. ²⁶ Their value was estimated at $25,000, not including the crescents and pendants, or the royal clothing of the kings, or the chains around the camels’ necks. ²⁷ Gideon made an ephod^[i] from the gold and put it in Ophrah, his hometown. But all Israel soon began worshiping it, so it became an evil deed that Gideon and his family did.

²⁸ That is the true account of how Midian was subdued by Israel. Midian never recovered, and the land was at peace for forty years—all during Gideon’s lifetime. ²⁹ He returned home ³⁰ and eventually had seventy sons, for he married many wives. ³¹ He also had a concubine in Shechem, who presented him with a son named Abimelech. ³² Gideon finally died, an old, old man, and was buried in the sepulcher of his father, Joash, in Ophrah, in the land of the Abiezrites.

³³ But as soon as Gideon was dead, the Israelis began to worship the idols Baal and Baal-berith. ³⁴ They no longer considered the Lord as their God, though he had rescued them from all their enemies on every side. ³⁵ Nor did they show any kindness to the family of Gideon despite all he had done for them.

9 One day Gideon’s son Abimelech visited his uncles—his mother’s brothers—in Shechem.

² “Go and talk to the leaders of Shechem,” he requested, “and ask them whether they want to be ruled by seventy kings—Gideon’s seventy sons—or by one man—meaning me, your own flesh and blood!”^[j]

³ So his uncles went to the leaders of the city and proposed Abimelech’s scheme; and they decided that since his mother was a native of their town they would go along with it. ⁴ They gave him money from the temple offerings of the idol Baal-berith, which he used to hire some worthless loafers who agreed to do whatever he told them to. ⁵ He took them to his father’s home at Ophrah and there, upon one stone, they slaughtered all seventy of his half brothers, except for the youngest, Jotham, who escaped and hid. ⁶ Then the citizens of Shechem and Beth-millo called a meeting under the oak beside the garrison at Shechem, and Abimelech was acclaimed king of Israel.

⁷ When Jotham heard about this, he stood at the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted across to the men of Shechem, “If you want God’s blessing, listen to me! ⁸ Once upon a time the trees decided to elect a king. First they asked the olive tree, ⁹ but it refused.

“‘Should I quit producing the olive oil that blesses God and man, just to wave to and fro over the other trees?’ it asked.

¹⁰ “Then they said to the fig tree, ‘You be our king!’

¹¹ “But the fig tree also refused. ‘Should I quit producing sweetness and fruit just to lift my head above all the other trees?’ it asked.

¹² “Then they said to the grapevine, ‘You reign over us!’

¹³ “But the grapevine replied, ‘Shall I quit producing the wine that cheers both God and man, just to be mightier than all the other trees?’

¹⁴ “Then all the trees finally turned to the thorn bush. ‘You be our king!’ they exclaimed.

¹⁵ “And the thorn bush replied, ‘If you really want me, come and humble yourselves beneath my shade! If you refuse, let fire flame forth from me and burn down the great cedars of Lebanon!’

¹⁶ “Now make sure that you have done the right thing in making Abimelech your king, that you have done right by Gideon and all of his descendants. ¹⁷ For my father fought for you and risked his life and delivered you from the Midianites, ¹⁸ yet you have revolted against him and killed his seventy sons upon one stone. And now you have chosen his slave girl’s son, Abimelech, to be your king just because he is your relative. ¹⁹ If you are sure that you have done right by Gideon and his descendants, then may you and Abimelech have a long and happy life together. ²⁰ But if you have not been fair to Gideon, then may Abimelech destroy the citizens of Shechem and Beth-millo; and may they destroy Abimelech!”

²¹ Then Jotham escaped and lived in Beer for fear of his brother, Abimelech. ^22-23 Three years later God stirred up trouble between King Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem, and they revolted. ²⁴ In the events that followed, both Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem who aided him in butchering Gideon’s seventy sons were given their just punishment for these murders. ²⁵ For the men of Shechem set an ambush for Abimelech along the trail at the top of the mountain. (While they were waiting for him to come along, they robbed everyone else who passed that way.) But someone warned Abimelech about their plot.

²⁶ At that time Gaal (the son of Ebed) moved to Shechem with his brothers, and he became one of the leading citizens. ²⁷ During the harvest feast at Shechem that year, held in the temple of the local god, the wine flowed freely and everyone began cursing Abimelech.

²⁸ “Who is Abimelech,” Gaal shouted, “and why should he be our king? Why should we be his servants? He and his friend Zebul should be our servants. Down with Abimelech! ²⁹ Make me your king and you’ll soon see what happens to Abimelech! I’ll tell Abimelech, ‘Get up an army and come on out and fight!’”

³⁰ But when Zebul, the mayor of the city, heard what Gaal was saying, he was furious. ³¹ He sent messengers to Abimelech in Arumah telling him, “Gaal, son of Ebed, and his relatives have come to live in Shechem, and now they are arousing the city to rebellion against you. ³² Come by night with an army and hide out in the fields; ³³ and in the morning, as soon as it is daylight, storm the city. When he and those who are with him come out against you, you can do with them as you wish!”

³⁴ So Abimelech and his men marched through the night and split into four groups, stationing themselves around the city. ³⁵ The next morning as Gaal sat at the city gates, discussing various issues with the local leaders, Abimelech and his men began their march upon the city.

³⁶ When Gaal saw them, he exclaimed to Zebul, “Look over at that mountain! Doesn’t it look like people coming down?”

“No!” Zebul said. “You’re just seeing shadows that look like men!”

³⁷ “No, look over there,” Gaal said. “I’m sure I see people coming toward us. And look! There are others coming along the road past the oak of Meonenim!”

³⁸ Then Zebul turned on him triumphantly. “Now where is that big mouth of yours?” he demanded. “Who was it who said, ‘Who is Abimelech, and why should he be our king?’ The men you taunted and cursed are right outside the city! Go on out and fight!”

³⁹ So Gaal led the men of Shechem into the battle and fought with Abimelech, ⁴⁰ but was defeated, and many of the men of Shechem were left wounded all the way to the city gate. ⁴¹ Abimelech was living at Arumah at this time, and Zebul drove Gaal and his relatives out of Shechem and wouldn’t let them live there any longer.

⁴² The next day the men of Shechem went out to battle again. However, someone had told Abimelech about their plans, ⁴³ so he had divided his men into three groups hiding in the fields. And when the men of the city went out to attack, he and his men jumped up from their hiding places and began killing them. ⁴⁴ Abimelech stormed the city gate to keep the men of Shechem from getting back in, while his other two groups cut them down in the fields. ⁴⁵ The battle went on all day before Abimelech finally captured the city, killed its people, and leveled it to the ground. ⁴⁶ The people at the nearby town of Migdal saw what was happening and took refuge in the fort next to the temple of Baal-berith.

^47-48 When Abimelech learned of this, he led his forces to Mount Zalmon where he began chopping a bundle of firewood, and placed it upon his shoulder. “Do as I have done,” he told his men. ⁴⁹ So each of them quickly cut a bundle and carried it back to the town where, following Abimelech’s example, the bundles were piled against the walls of the fort and set on fire. So all the people inside died, about a thousand men and women.

⁵⁰ Abimelech next attacked the city of Thebez, and captured it. ⁵¹ However, there was a fort inside the city and the entire population fled into it, barricaded the gates, and climbed to the top of the roof to watch. ⁵² But as Abimelech was preparing to burn it, ⁵³ a woman on the roof threw down a millstone. It landed on Abimelech’s head, crushing his skull.

⁵⁴ “Kill me!” he groaned to his youthful armor bearer. “Never let it be said that a woman killed Abimelech!”

So the young man pierced him with his sword, and he died. ⁵⁵ When his men saw that he was dead, they disbanded and returned to their homes. ^56-57 Thus God punished both Abimelech and the men of Shechem for their sin of murdering Gideon’s seventy sons. So the curse of Jotham, Gideon’s son, came true.

10 After Abimelech’s death, the next judge of Israel was Tola (son of Puah and grandson of Dodo). He was from the tribe of Issachar, but lived in the city of Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim. ² He was Israel’s judge for twenty-three years. When he died, he was buried in Shamir, ³ and was succeeded by Jair, a man from Gilead, who judged Israel for twenty-two years. ⁴ His thirty sons rode around together on thirty donkeys, and they owned thirty cities in the land of Gilead which are still called “The Cities of Jair.” ⁵ When Jair died he was buried in Kamon.

⁶ Then the people of Israel turned away from the Lord again and worshiped the heathen gods Baal and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, Sidon, Moab, Ammon, and Philistia. Not only this, but they no longer worshiped Jehovah at all. ^7-8 This made Jehovah very angry with his people, so he immediately permitted the Philistines and the Ammonites to begin tormenting them. These attacks took place east of the Jordan River in the land of the Amorites (that is, in Gilead), ⁹ and also in Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. For the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to attack the Israelis. This went on for eighteen years. ¹⁰ Finally the Israelis turned to Jehovah again and begged him to save them.

“We have sinned against you and have forsaken you as our God and have worshiped idols,” they confessed.

¹¹ But the Lord replied, “Didn’t I save you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, ¹² the Sidonians, the Amalekites, and the Maonites? Has there ever been a time when you cried out to me that I haven’t rescued you? ¹³ Yet you continue to abandon me and to worship other gods. So go away; I won’t save you anymore. ¹⁴ Go and cry to the new gods you have chosen! Let them save you in your hour of distress!”

¹⁵ But they pleaded with him again and said, “We have sinned. Punish us in any way you think best, only save us once more from our enemies.”

¹⁶ Then they destroyed their foreign gods and worshiped only the Lord; and he was grieved by their misery. ¹⁷ The armies of Ammon were mobilized in Gilead at that time, preparing to attack Israel’s army at Mizpah.

¹⁸ “Who will lead our forces against the Ammonites?” the leaders of Gilead asked each other. “Whoever volunteers shall be our king!”

11 ^1-2 Now Jephthah was a great warrior from the land of Gilead, but his mother was a prostitute. His father (whose name was Gilead) had several other sons by his legitimate wife, and when these half brothers grew up, they chased Jephthah out of the country.

“You son of a whore!” they said. “You’ll not get any of our father’s estate.”

³ So Jephthah fled from his father’s home and lived in the land of Tob. Soon he had quite a band of malcontents as his followers, living off the land as bandits. ⁴ It was about this time that the Ammonites began their war against Israel. ⁵ The leaders of Gilead sent for Jephthah, ⁶ begging him to come and lead their army against the Ammonites.

⁷ But Jephthah said to them, “Why do you come to me when you hate me and have driven me out of my father’s house? Why come now when you’re in trouble?”

⁸ “Because we need you,” they replied. “If you will be our commander-in-chief against the Ammonites, we will make you the king of Gilead.”

⁹ “Sure!” Jephthah exclaimed. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

¹⁰ “We swear it,” they replied. “We promise with a solemn oath.”

¹¹ So Jephthah accepted the commission and was made commander-in-chief and king. The contract was ratified before the Lord in Mizpah at a general assembly of all the people. ¹² Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of Ammon, demanding to know why Israel was being attacked. ¹³ The king of Ammon replied that the land belonged to the people of Ammon; it had been stolen from them, he said, when the Israelis came from Egypt; the whole territory from the Arnon River to the Jabbok and the Jordan was his, he claimed.

“Give us back our land peaceably,” he demanded.

^14-15 Jephthah replied, “Israel did not steal the land. ¹⁶ What happened was this: When the people of Israel arrived at Kadesh, on their journey from Egypt after crossing the Red Sea, ¹⁷ they sent a message to the king of Edom asking permission to pass through his land. But their petition was denied. Then they asked the king of Moab for similar permission. It was the same story there, so the people of Israel stayed in Kadesh.

¹⁸ “Finally they went around Edom and Moab through the wilderness, and traveled along the eastern border until at last they arrived beyond the boundary of Moab at the Arnon River; but they never once crossed into Moab. ¹⁹ Then Israel sent messengers to King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and asked permission to cross through his land to get to their destination.

²⁰ “But King Sihon didn’t trust Israel, so he mobilized an army at Jahaz and attacked them. ^21-22 But the Lord our God helped Israel defeat King Sihon and all your people, so Israel took over all of your land from the Arnon River to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness to the Jordan River.

²³ “So you see, it was the Lord God of Israel who took away the land from the Amorites and gave it to Israel. Why, then, should we return it to you? ²⁴ You keep whatever your god Chemosh gives you, and we will keep whatever Jehovah our God gives us! ²⁵ And besides, just who do you think you are? Are you better than King Balak, the king of Moab? Did he try to recover his land after Israel defeated him? No, of course not. ²⁶ But now after three hundred years you make an issue of this! Israel has been living here for all that time, spread across the land from Heshbon to Aroer, and all along the Arnon River. Why have you made no effort to recover it before now? ²⁷ No, I have not sinned against you; rather, you have wronged me by coming to war against me; but Jehovah the Judge will soon show which of us is right—Israel or Ammon.”

²⁸ But the king of Ammon paid no attention to Jephthah’s message.

²⁹ At that time the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he led his army across the land of Gilead and Manasseh, past Mizpah in Gilead, and attacked the army of Ammon. ^30-31 Meanwhile Jephthah had vowed to the Lord that if God would help Israel conquer the Ammonites, then when he returned home in peace, the first person coming out of his house to meet him would be sacrificed as a burnt offering to the Lord!

³² So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave him the victory. ³³ He destroyed the Ammonites with a terrible slaughter all the way from Aroer to Minnith, including twenty cities, and as far away as Vineyard Meadow. Thus the Ammonites were subdued by the people of Israel.

³⁴ When Jephthah returned home his daughter—his only child—ran out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. ³⁵ When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish.

“Alas, my daughter!” he cried out. “You have brought me to the dust. For I have made a vow to the Lord and I cannot take it back.”

³⁶ And she said, “Father, you must do whatever you promised the Lord, for he has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites. ³⁷ But first let me go up into the hills and roam with my girlfriends for two months, weeping because I’ll never marry.”

³⁸ “Yes,” he said. “Go.”

And so she did, bewailing her fate with her friends for two months. ³⁹ Then she returned to her father, who did as he had vowed. So she was never married.^[k] And after that it became a custom in Israel ⁴⁰ that the young girls went away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah’s daughter.

12 Then the tribe of Ephraim mobilized its army at Zaphon and sent this message to Jephthah: “Why didn’t you call for us to help you fight against Ammon? We are going to burn down your house, with you in it!”

² “I summoned you, but you refused to come!” Jephthah retorted. “You failed to help us in our time of need, ³ so I risked my life and went to battle without you, and the Lord helped me to conquer the enemy. Is that anything for you to fight us about?”

⁴ Then Jephthah, furious at the taunt of Ephraim that the men of Gilead were mere outcasts^[l] and the scum of the earth, mobilized his army and attacked the army of Ephraim. ⁵ He captured the fords of the Jordan behind the army of Ephraim, and whenever a fugitive from Ephraim tried to cross the river, the Gilead guards challenged him.

“Are you a member of the tribe of Ephraim?” they asked. If the man replied that he was not, ⁶ then they demanded, “Say ‘Shibboleth.’” But if he couldn’t pronounce the H and said, “Sibboleth” instead of “Shibboleth,” he was dragged away and killed. So forty-two thousand people of Ephraim died there at that time.

⁷ Jephthah was Israel’s judge for six years. At his death he was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.

⁸ The next judge was Ibzan, who lived in Bethlehem. ^9-10 He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He married his daughters to men outside his clan and brought in thirty girls to marry his sons. He judged Israel for seven years before he died, and was buried at Bethlehem.

^11-12 The next judge was Elon from Zebulun. He judged Israel for ten years and was buried at Aijalon in Zebulun.

¹³ Next was Abdon (son of Hillel) from Pirathon. ¹⁴ He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys. He was Israel’s judge for eight years. ¹⁵ Then he died and was buried in Pirathon, in Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.

13 Once again Israel sinned by worshiping other gods, so the Lord let them be conquered by the Philistines, who kept them in subjection for forty years.

^2-3 Then one day the Angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoah, of the tribe of Dan, who lived in the city of Zorah. She had no children, but the Angel said to her, “Even though you have been barren so long, you will soon conceive and have a son! ⁴ Don’t drink any wine or beer and don’t eat any food that isn’t kosher. ⁵ Your son’s hair must never be cut, for he shall be a Nazirite, a special servant of God from the time of his birth; and he will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.”

⁶ The woman ran and told her husband, “A man from God appeared to me and I think he must be the Angel of the Lord, for he was almost too glorious to look at. I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name, ⁷ but he told me, ‘You are going to have a baby boy!’ And he told me not to drink any wine or beer and not to eat food that isn’t kosher, for the baby is going to be a Nazirite—he will be dedicated to God from the moment of his birth until the day of his death!”

⁸ Then Manoah prayed, “O Lord, please let the man from God come back to us again and give us more instructions about the child you are going to give us.” ⁹ The Lord answered his prayer, and the Angel of God appeared once again to his wife as she was sitting in the field. But again she was alone—Manoah was not with her— ¹⁰ so she quickly ran and found her husband and told him, “The same man is here again!”

¹¹ Manoah ran back with his wife and asked, “Are you the man who talked to my wife the other day?”

“Yes,” he replied, “I am.”

¹² So Manoah asked him, “Can you give us any special instructions about how we should raise the baby after he is born?”

^13-14 And the Angel replied, “Be sure that your wife follows the instructions I gave her. She must not eat grapes or raisins, or drink any wine or beer, or eat anything that isn’t kosher.”

¹⁵ Then Manoah said to the Angel, “Please stay here until we can get you something to eat.”

¹⁶ “I’ll stay,” the Angel replied, “but I’ll not eat anything. However, if you wish to bring something, bring an offering to sacrifice to the Lord.” (Manoah didn’t yet realize that he was the Angel of the Lord.)

¹⁷ Then Manoah asked him for his name. “When all this comes true and the baby is born,” he said to the Angel, “we will certainly want to tell everyone that you predicted it!”

¹⁸ “Don’t even ask my name,” the Angel replied, “for it is a secret.”

¹⁹ Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it as a sacrifice to the Lord; and the Angel did a strange and wonderful thing, ²⁰ for as the flames from the altar were leaping up toward the sky, and as Manoah and his wife watched, the Angel ascended in the fire! Manoah and his wife fell face downward to the ground, ²¹ and that was the last they ever saw of him. It was then that Manoah finally realized that it had been the Angel of the Lord.

²² “We will die,” Manoah cried out to his wife, “for we have seen God!”

²³ But his wife said, “If the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted our burnt offerings and wouldn’t have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles.”

²⁴ When her son was born they named him Samson, and the Lord blessed him as he grew up. ²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to excite him whenever he visited the parade grounds of the army of the tribe of Dan, located between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol.

14 One day when Samson was in Timnah he noticed a certain Philistine girl, ² and when he got home he told his father and mother that he wanted to marry her. ³ They objected strenuously.

“Why don’t you marry a Jewish girl?” they asked. “Why must you go and get a wife from these heathen Philistines? Isn’t there one girl among all the people of Israel you could marry?”

But Samson told his father, “She is the one I want. Get her for me.”

⁴ His father and mother didn’t realize that the Lord was behind the request, for God was setting a trap for the Philistines, who at that time were the rulers of Israel.

⁵ As Samson and his parents were going to Timnah, a young lion attacked Samson in the vineyards on the outskirts of the town. ⁶ At that moment the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and since he had no weapon, he ripped the lion’s jaws apart and did it as easily as though it were a young goat! But he didn’t tell his father or mother about it. ⁷ Upon arriving at Timnah, he talked with the girl and found her to be just what he wanted, so the arrangements were made.^[m]

⁸ When he returned for the wedding, he turned off the path to look at the carcass of the lion. And he found a swarm of bees in it and some honey! ⁹ He took some of the honey with him, eating as he went, and gave some of it to his father and mother. But he didn’t tell them where he had gotten it.

^10-11 As his father was making final arrangements for the marriage, Samson threw a party for thirty young men of the village, as was the custom of the day. ¹² When Samson asked if they would like to hear a riddle, they replied that they would.

“If you solve my riddle during these seven days of the celebration,” he said, “I’ll give you thirty plain robes and thirty fancy robes. ¹³ But if you can’t solve it, then you must give the robes to me!”

“All right,” they agreed, “let’s hear it.”

¹⁴ This was his riddle: “Food came out of the eater, and sweetness from the strong!” Three days later they were still trying to figure it out.

¹⁵ On the fourth day they said to his new wife, “Get the answer from your husband, or we’ll burn down your father’s house with you in it. Were we invited to this party just to make us poor?”

¹⁶ So Samson’s wife broke down in tears before him and said, “You don’t love me at all; you hate me, for you have told a riddle to my people and haven’t told me the answer!”

“I haven’t even told it to my father or mother; why should I tell you?” he replied.

¹⁷ So she cried whenever she was with him and kept it up for the remainder of the celebration. At last, on the seventh day, he told her the answer and she, of course, gave the answer to the young men. ¹⁸ So before sunset of the seventh day they gave him their reply.

“What is sweeter than honey?” they asked, “and what is stronger than a lion?”

“If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have found the answer to my riddle!” he retorted.

¹⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he went to the city of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their clothing, and gave it to the young men who had told him the answer to his riddle. But he was furious about it and abandoned his wife and went back home to live with his father and mother. ²⁰ So his wife was married instead to the fellow who had been best man at Samson’s wedding.

15 Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a present to his wife, intending to sleep with her; but her father wouldn’t let him in.

² “I really thought you hated her,” he explained, “so I married her to your best man. But look, her sister is prettier than she is. Marry her instead.”

³ Samson was furious. “You can’t blame me for whatever happens now,” he shouted.

⁴ So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied their tails together in pairs, with a torch between each pair. ⁵ Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the fields of the Philistines, burning the grain to the ground along with all the sheaves and shocks of grain, and destroying the olive trees.

⁶ “Who did this?” the Philistines demanded.

“Samson,” was the reply, “because his wife’s father gave her to another man.” So the Philistines came and got the girl and her father and burned them alive.

⁷ “Now my vengeance will strike again!” Samson vowed. ⁸ So he attacked them with great fury and killed many of them. Then he went to live in a cave in the rock of Etam. ⁹ The Philistines in turn sent a huge posse into Judah and raided Lehi.

¹⁰ “Why have you come here?” the men of Judah asked.

And the Philistines replied, “To capture Samson and do to him as he has done to us.”

¹¹ So three thousand men of Judah went down to get Samson at the cave in the rock of Etam.

“What are you doing to us?” they demanded of him. “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are our rulers?”

But Samson replied, “I only paid them back for what they did to me.”

^12-13 “We have come to capture you and take you to the Philistines,” the men of Judah told him.

“All right,” Samson said, “but promise me that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

“No,” they replied, “we won’t do that.”

So they tied him with two new ropes and led him away.