1:1 Now after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel
made
request to the Lord,
saying, Who is to go up first to make war
for us against the
Canaanites?
1:2 And the Lord said, Judah is to go up: see, I have given
the
land into his hands.
1:3 Then Judah said to Simeon his brother, Come up with me
into
my heritage, so that
we may make war against the Canaanites;
and I will then go
with you into your heritage. So Simeon went
with him.
1:4 And Judah went up; and the Lord gave the Canaanites and
the
Perizzites into their
hands; and they overcame ten thousand of
them in Bezek.
1:5 And they came across Adoni-zedek, and made war on him;
and
they overcame the
Canaanites and the Perizzites.
1:6 But Adoni-zedek went in flight; and they went after him
and
overtook him, and had
his thumbs and his great toes cut off.
1:7 And Adoni-zedek said, Seventy kings, whose thumbs and
great
toes had been cut
off, got broken meat under my table: as I
have done, so has God
done to me in full. And they took him to
Jerusalem, and he
came to his end there.
1:8 Then the children of Judah made an attack on Jerusalem,
and
took it, burning down
the town after they had put its people to
the sword without
mercy.
1:9 After that the children of Judah went down to make war
on
the Canaanites living
in the hill-country and in the south and
in the lowlands.
1:10 And Caleb went against the Canaanites of Hebron: (now
in
earlier times Hebron
was named Kiriath-arba:) and he put
Sheshai and Ahiman
and Talmai to the sword.
1:11 And from there he went up against the people of Debir.
(Now
the name of Debir in
earlier times was Kiriath-sepher.)
1:12 And Caleb said, I will give Achsah, my daughter, as
wife to
the man who overcomes
Kiriath-sepher and takes it.
1:13 And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother,
took it; so he gave
him his daughter Achsah for his wife.
1:14 Now when she came to him, he put into her mind the idea
of
requesting a field
from her father: and she got down from her
ass; and Caleb said
to her, What is it?
1:15 And she said to him, Give me a blessing; because you
have
put me in a dry
south-land, now give me springs of water. So
Caleb gave her the
higher spring and the lower spring.
1:16 Now Hobab the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, had come up
out
of the town of
palm-trees, with the children of Judah, into the
waste land of Arad;
and he went and was living among the
Amalekites;
1:17 And Judah went with Simeon, his brother, and overcame
the
Canaanites living in
Zephath, and put it under the curse; and
he gave the town the
name of Hormah.
1:18 Then Judah took Gaza and its limit, and Ashkelon and
its
limit, and Ekron and
its limit.
1:19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he took the
hill-country
for his heritage; but
he was unable to make the people of the
valley go out, for
they had war-carriages of iron.
1:20 And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said; and
he
took the land of the
three sons of Anak, driving them out from
there.
1:21 And the children of Judah did not make the Jebusites
who
were living in
Jerusalem go out; the Jebusites are still living
with the children of
Benjamin in Jerusalem.
1:22 And the family of Joseph went up against Beth-el, and
the
Lord was with them.
1:23 So they sent men to make a search round Beth-el. (Now
the
name of the town in
earlier times was Luz.)
1:24 And the watchers saw a man coming out of the town, and
said
to him, If you will
make clear to us the way into the town, we
will be kind to you.
1:25 So he made clear to them the way into the town, and
they
put it to the sword;
but they let the man and all his family
get away safe.
1:26 And he went into the land of the Hittites, building a
town
there and naming it
Luz: which is its name to this day.
1:27 And Manasseh did not take away the land of the people of
Beth-shean and its
daughter-towns, or of Taanach and its
daughter-towns, or of
the people of Dor and its daughter-towns,
or of the people of
Ibleam and its daughter-towns, or of the
people of Megiddo and
its daughter-towns, driving them out; but
the Canaanites would
go on living in that land.
1:28 And whenever Israel became strong, they put the
Canaanites
to forced work,
without driving them out completely.
1:29 And Ephraim did not make the Canaanites who were living
in
Gezer go out; but the
Canaanites went on living in Gezer among
them.
1:30 Zebulun did not make the people of Kitron or the people
of
Nahalol go out; but
the Canaanites went on living among them
and were put to
forced work.
1:31 And Asher did not take the land of the people of Acco,
or
Zidon, or Ahlab, or
Achzib, or Helbah, or Aphik, or Rehob,
driving them out;
1:32 But the Asherites went on living among the Canaanites,
the
people of the land,
without driving them out.
1:33 Naphtali did not take the land of the people of
Beth-shemesh or of
Beth-anath, driving them out; but he was
living among the
Canaanites in the land; however, the people of
Beth-shemesh and
Beth-anath were put to forced work.
1:34 And the children of Dan were forced into the
hill-country
by the Amorites, who
would not let them come down into the
valley;
1:35 For the Amorites would go on living in Mount Heres, in
Aijalon, and in
Shaalbim; but the children of Joseph became
stronger than they,
and put them to forced work.
1:36 And the limit of the Edomites went from the slope of
Akrabbim from Sela
and up.
2:1 Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim.
And
he said, *** I took
you out of Egypt, guiding you into the land
which I gave by an
oath to your fathers; and I said, My
agreement with you
will never be broken by me:
2:2 And you are to make no agreement with the people of this
land; you are to see
that their altars are broken down: but you
have not given ear to
my voice: what have you done?
2:3 And so I have said, I will not send them out from before
you; but they will be
a danger to you, and their gods will be a
cause of falling to
you.
2:4 Now on hearing these words which the angel of the Lord
said
to all the children
of Israel, the people gave themselves up to
loud crying and
weeping.
2:5 And they gave that place the name of Bochim, and made
offerings there to
the Lord.
2:6 And Joshua let the people go away, and the children of
Israel went, every
man to his heritage, to take the land for
themselves.
2:7 And the people were true to the Lord all the days of
Joshua,
and all the days of
the responsible men who were still living
after the death of
Joshua, and had seen all the great work of
the Lord which he had
done for Israel.
2:8 And death came to Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of
the
Lord, he being a
hundred and ten years old.
2:9 And they put his body in the earth in the land of his
heritage in
Timnath-heres, in the hill-country of Ephraim to
the north of Mount
Gaash.
2:10 And in time death overtook all that generation; and
another
generation came after
them, having no knowledge of the Lord or
of the things which
he had done for Israel.
2:11 And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the
Lord
and became servants
to the Baals;
2:12 And they gave up the Lord, the God of their fathers,
who
had taken them out of
the land of Egypt, and went after other
gods, the gods of the
peoples round about them, worshipping
them and moving the
Lord to wrath.
2:13 And they gave up the Lord, and became the servants of
Baal
and the Astartes.
2:14 And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel,
and
he gave them up into
the hands of those who violently took
their property, and
into the hands of their haters all round
them, so that they were
forced to give way before them.
2:15 Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was
against
them for evil, as the
Lord had taken his oath it would be; and
things became very
hard for them.
2:16 Then the Lord gave them judges, as their saviours from the
hands of those who
were cruel to them.
2:17 But still they would not give ear to their judges, but
went
after other gods and
gave them worship; quickly turning from
the way in which
their fathers had gone, keeping the orders of
the Lord; but they did
not do so.
2:18 And whenever the Lord gave them judges, then the Lord
was
with the judge, and
was their saviour from the hands of their
haters all the days
of the judge; for the Lord was moved by
their cries of grief
because of those who were cruel to them.
2:19 But whenever the judge was dead, they went back and did
more evil than their
fathers, going after other gods, to be
their servants and
their worshippers; giving up nothing of
their sins and their
hard-hearted ways.
2:20 And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel,
and
he said, Because this
nation has not been true to my agreement
which I made with
their fathers, and has not given ear to my
voice;
2:21 From now on I will not go on driving out from before them
any of the nations
which at the death of Joshua were still
living in this land;
2:22 In order to put Israel to the test, and see if they
will
keep the way of the
Lord, walking in it as their fathers did,
or not.
2:23 So the Lord let those nations go on living in the land,
not
driving them out
quickly, and did not give them up into the
hands of Joshua.
3:1 Now these are the nations which the Lord kept in the
land
for the purpose of
testing Israel by them, all those who had
had no experience of
all the wars of Canaan;
3:2 Only because of the generations of the children of
Israel,
for the purpose of
teaching them war--only those who up till
then had no
experience of it;
3:3 The five chiefs of the Philistines, and all the
Canaanites
and the Zidonians and
the Hivites living in Mount Lebanon, from
the mountain
Baal-hermon as far as Hamath:
3:4 For the purpose of testing Israel by them, to see if
they
would give ear to the
orders of the Lord, which he had given to
their fathers by the
hand of Moses.
3:5 Now the children of Israel were living among the
Canaanites,
the Hittites, and the
Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the
Hivites, and the
Jebusites:
3:6 And they took as wives the daughters of these nations
and
gave their daughters
to their sons, and became servants to
their gods.
3:7 And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the
Lord,
and put out of their
minds the Lord their God, and became
servants to the Baals
and the Astartes.
3:8 So the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and
he
gave them up into the
hands of Cushan-rishathaim, king of
Mesopotamia; and the
children of Israel were his servants for
eight years.
3:9 And when the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord,
he
gave them a saviour,
Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger
brother.
3:10 And the spirit of the Lord came on him and he became
judge
of Israel, and went
out to war, and the Lord gave up
Cushan-rishathaim,
king of Mesopotamia, into his hands and he
overcame him.
3:11 Then for forty years the land had peace, till the death
of
Othniel, the son of
Kenaz.
3:12 Then the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes
of
the Lord; and the
Lord made Eglon, king of Moab, strong against
Israel, because they
had done evil in the Lord's eyes.
3:13 And Eglon got together the people of Ammon and Amalek,
and
they went and
overcame Israel and took the town of palm-trees.
3:14 And the children of Israel were servants to Eglon, king
of
Moab, for eighteen
years.
3:15 Then when the children of Israel made prayer to the
Lord,
he gave them a
saviour, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a
left-handed man; and
the children of Israel sent an offering by
him to Eglon, king of
Moab.
3:16 So Ehud made himself a two-edged sword, a cubit long,
which
he put on at his
right side under his robe.
3:17 And he took the offering to Eglon, king of Moab, who
was a
very fat man.
3:18 And after giving the offering, he sent away the people
who
had come with the
offering.
3:19 But he himself, turning back from the stone images at
Gilgal, said, I have
something to say to you in secret, O king.
And he said, Let
there be quiet. Then all those who were
waiting before him
went out.
3:20 Then Ehud came in to him while he was seated by himself
in
his summer-house. And
Ehud said, I have a word from God for
you. And he got up
from his seat.
3:21 And Ehud put out his left hand, and took the sword from
his
right side, and sent
it into his stomach;
3:22 And the hand-part went in after the blade, and the fat
was
joined up over the
blade; for he did not take the sword out of
his stomach. And he
went out into the ...
3:23 Then Ehud went out into the covered way, shutting the
doors
of the summer-house
on him and locking them.
3:24 Now when he had gone, the king's servants came, and saw
that the doors of the
summer-house were locked; and they said,
It may be that he is
in his summer-house for a private purpose.
3:25 And they went on waiting till they were shamed, but the
doors were still
shut; so they took the key, and, opening them,
saw their lord
stretched out dead on the floor.
3:26 But Ehud had got away while they were waiting and had
gone
past the stone images
and got away to Seirah.
3:27 And when he came there, he had a horn sounded in the
hill-country of
Ephraim, and all the children of Israel went
down with him from
the hill-country, and he at their head.
3:28 And he said to them, Come after me; for the Lord has
given
the Moabites, your
haters, into your hands. So they went down
after him and took
the crossing-places of Jordan against Moab,
and let no one go
across.
3:29 At that time they put about ten thousand men of Moab to
the
sword, every strong
man and every man of war; not a man got
away.
3:30 So Moab was broken that day under the hand of Israel.
And
for eighty years the
land had peace.
3:31 And after him came Shamgar, the son of Anath, who put
to
death six hundred
Philistines with an ox-stick; and he was
another saviour of
Israel.
4:1 And the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes of
the
Lord when Ehud was
dead.
4:2 And the Lord gave them up into the hands of Jabin, king
of
Canaan, who was
ruling in Hazor; the captain of his army was
Sisera, who was
living in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
4:3 Then the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord; for
he
had nine hundred iron
war-carriages, and for twenty years he
was very cruel to the
children of Israel.
4:4 Now Deborah, a woman prophet, the wife of Lapidoth, was
judge of Israel at
that time.
4:5 (And she had her seat under the palm-tree of Deborah
between
Ramah and Beth-el in
the hill-country of Ephraim; and the
children of Israel
came up to her to be judged.)
4:6 And she sent for Barak, the son of Abinoam, from
Kedesh-naphtali, and
said to him, Has not the Lord, the God of
Israel, given orders
saying, Go and get your force into line in
Mount Tabor, and take
with you ten thousand men of the children
of Naphtali and of
the children of Zebulun?
4:7 And I will make Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army,
with
his war-carriages and
his forces, come against you at the river
Kishon, where I will
give him into your hands.
4:8 And Barak said to her, If you will go with me then I
will
go; but if you will
not go with me I will not go.
4:9 And she said, I will certainly go with you: though you
will
get no honour in your
undertaking, for the Lord will give
Sisera into the hands
of a woman. So Deborah got up and went
with Barak to Kedesh.
4:10 Then Barak sent for Zebulun and Naphtali to come to
Kedesh;
and ten thousand men
went up after him, and Deborah went up
with him.
4:11 Now Heber the Kenite, separating himself from the rest
of
the Kenites, from the
children of Hobab, the brother-in-law of
Moses, had put up his
tent as far away as the oak-tree in
Zaanannim, by Kedesh.
4:12 And word was given to Sisera that Barak, the son of
Abinoam, had gone up
to Mount Tabor.
4:13 So Sisera got together all his war-carriages, nine
hundred
war-carriages of
iron, and all the people who were with him,
from Harosheth of the
Gentiles as far as the river Kishon.
4:14 Then Deborah said to Barak, Up! for today the Lord has
given Sisera into
your hands: has not the Lord gone out before
you? So Barak went
down from Mount Tabor and ten thousand men
after him.
4:15 And the Lord sent fear on Sisera and all his
war-carriages
and all his army
before Barak; and Sisera got down from his
war-carriage and went
in flight on foot.
4:16 But Barak went after the war-carriages and the army as
far
as Harosheth of the
Gentiles; and all Sisera's army was put to
the sword; not a man
got away.
4:17 But Sisera went in flight on foot to the tent of Jael,
the
wife of Heber the
Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin,
king of Hazor, and
the family of Heber the Kenite.
4:18 And Jael went out to Sisera, and said to him, Come in,
my
lord, come in to me
without fear. So he went into her tent, and
she put a cover over
him.
4:19 Then he said to her, Give me now a little water, for I
have
need of a drink. And
opening a skin of milk, she gave him
drink, and put the
cover over him again.
4:20 And he said to her, Take your place at the door of the
tent, and if anyone
comes and says to you, Is there any man
here, say, No.
4:21 Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a tent-pin and a hammer
and
went up to him
quietly, driving the pin into his head, and it
went through his head
into the earth, for he was in a deep
sleep from weariness;
and so he came to his end.
4:22 Then Jael went out, and meeting Barak going after
Sisera,
said to him, Come,
and I will let you see the man you are
searching for. So he
came into her tent and saw, and there was
Sisera stretched out
dead with the tent-pin in his head.
4:23 So that day God overcame Jabin, king of Canaan, before
the
children of Israel.
4:24 And the power of the children of Israel went on
increasing
against Jabin, king
of Canaan, till he was cut off.
5:1 At that time Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam, made
this song, saying:
5:2 Because of the flowing hair of the fighters in Israel,
because the people
gave themselves freely, give praise to the
Lord.
5:3 Give attention, O kings; give ear, O rulers; I, even I,
will
make a song to the
Lord; I will make melody to the Lord, the
God of Israel.
5:4 Lord, when you went out from Seir, moving like an army
from
the field of Edom,
the earth was shaking and the heavens were
troubled, and the
clouds were dropping water.
5:5 The mountains were shaking before the Lord, before the
Lord,
the God of Israel.
5:6 In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of
Jael, the highways
were not used, and travellers went by side
roads.
5:7 Country towns were no more in Israel, *** were no more,
till
you, Deborah, came
up, till you came up as a mother in Israel.
5:8 They had no one to make arms, there were no more armed
men
in the towns; was
there a body-cover or a spear to be seen
among forty thousand
in Israel?
5:9 Come, you rulers of Israel, you who gave yourselves
freely
among the people:
give praise to the Lord.
5:10 Let them give thought to it, who go on white asses, and
those who are walking
on the road.
5:11 Give ear to the women laughing by the water-springs;
there
they will give again
the story of the upright acts of the Lord,
all the upright acts
of his arm in Israel.
5:12 Awake! awake! Deborah: awake! awake! give a song: Up!
Barak, and take
prisoner those who took you prisoner, O son of
Abinoam.
5:13 Then the chiefs went down to the doors; the Lord's
people
went down among the
strong ones.
5:14 Out of Ephraim they came down into the valley; after
you,
Benjamin, among your
tribesmen; from Machir came down the
captains, and from
Zebulun those in whose hand is the ruler's
rod.
5:15 Your chiefs, Issachar, were with Deborah; and Naphtali
was
true to Barak; into
the valley they went rushing out at his
feet. In Reuben there
were divisions, and great searchings of
heart.
5:16 Why did you keep quiet among the sheep, hearing nothing
but
the watchers piping
to the flocks?
5:17 Gilead was living over Jordan; and Dan was waiting in
his
ships; Asher kept in
his place by the sea's edge, living by his
inlets.
5:18 It was the people of Zebulun who put their lives in
danger,
even to death, with
Naphtali on the high places of the field.
5:19 The kings came on to the fight, the kings of Canaan
were
warring; in Taanach
by the waters of Megiddo: they took no
profit in money.
5:20 The stars from heaven were fighting; from their
highways
they were fighting
against Sisera.
5:21 The river Kishon took them violently away, stopping
their
flight, the river
Kishon. Give praise, O my soul, to the
strength of the Lord!
5:22 Then loudly the feet of the horses were sounding with
the
stamping, the
stamping of their war-horses.
5:23 A curse, a curse on Meroz! said the angel of the Lord.
A
bitter curse on her
townspeople! Because they came not to the
help of the Lord, to
the help of the Lord among the strong
ones.
5:24 Blessings be on Jael, more than on all women! Blessings
greater than on any
in the tents!
5:25 His request was for water, she gave him milk; she put
butter before him on
a fair plate.
5:26 She put out her hand to the tent-pin, and her right hand
to
the workman's hammer;
and she gave Sisera a blow, crushing his
head, wounding and
driving through his brow.
5:27 Bent at her feet he went down, he was stretched out;
bent
at her feet he went
down; where he was bent down, there he went
down in death.
5:28 Looking out from the window she gave a cry, the mother
of
Sisera was crying out
through the window, Why is his carriage
so long in coming?
When will the noise of his wheels be
sounding?
5:29 Her wise women gave answer to her, yes, she made answer
again to herself,
5:30 Are they not getting, are they not parting the goods
among
them: a young girl or
two to every man; and to Sisera robes of
coloured needlework,
worked in fair colours on this side and on
that, for the neck of
the queen?
5:31 So may destruction come on all your haters, O Lord; but
let
your lovers be like
the sun going out in his strength. And for
forty years the land
had peace.
6:1 And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the
Lord;
and the Lord gave
them up into the hand of Midian for seven
years.
6:2 And Midian was stronger than Israel; and because of the
Midianites, the
children of Israel made holes for themselves in
the mountains, and
hollows in the rocks, and strong places.
6:3 And whenever Israel's grain was planted, the Midianites
and
the Amalekites and
the people of the east came up against them;
6:4 And put their army in position against them; and they
took
all the produce of
the earth as far as Gaza, till there was no
food in Israel, or
any sheep or oxen or asses.
6:5 For they came up regularly with their oxen and their
tents;
they came like the
locusts in number; they and their camels
were without number;
and they came into the land for its
destruction.
6:6 And Israel was in great need because of Midian; and the
cry
of the children of
Israel went up to the Lord.
6:7 And when the cry of the children of Israel, because of
Midian, came before
the Lord,
6:8 The Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who
said
to them, The Lord the
God of Israel, has said, I took you up
from Egypt, out of
the prison-house;
6:9 And I took you out of the hands of the Egyptians and out
of
the hands of all who
were cruel to you, and I sent them out by
force from before you
and gave you their land;
6:10 And I said to you, I am the Lord your God; you are not
to
give worship to the
gods of the Amorites in whose land you are
living, but you did
not give ear to my voice.
6:11 Now the angel of the Lord came and took his seat under
the
oak-tree in Ophrah,
in the field of Joash the Abiezrite; and
his son Gideon was
crushing grain in the place where the grapes
were crushed, so that
the Midianites might not see it.
6:12 And the angel of the Lord came before his eyes, and
said to
him, The Lord is with
you, O man of war.
6:13 Then Gideon said to him, O my lord, if the Lord is with
us
why has all this come
on us? And where are all his works of
power, of which our
fathers have given us word, saying, Did not
the Lord take us out
of Egypt? But now he has given us up,
handing us over to
the power of Midian.
6:14 And the Lord, turning to him, said, Go in the strength
you
have and be Israel's
saviour from Midian: have I not sent you?
6:15 And he said to him, O Lord, how may I be the saviour of
Israel? See, my
family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the
least in my father's
house.
6:16 Then the Lord said to him, Truly, I will be with you,
and
you will overcome the
Midianites as if they were one man.
6:17 So he said to him, If now I have grace in your eyes,
then
give me a sign that
it is you who are talking to me.
6:18 Do not go away till I come with my offering and put it
before you. And he
said, I will not go away before you come
back.
6:19 Then Gideon went in and made ready a young goat, and
with
an ephah of meal he
made unleavened cakes: he put the meat in a
basket and the soup
in which it had been cooked he put in a
pot, and he took it
out to him under the oak-tree and gave it
to him there.
6:20 And the angel of God said to him, Take the meat and the
unleavened cakes and
put them down on the rock over there,
draining out the soup
over them. And he did so.
6:21 Then the angel of the Lord put out the stick which was
in
his hand, touching
the meat and the cakes with the end of it;
and a flame came up
out of the rock, burning up the meat and
the cakes: and the
angel of the Lord was seen no longer.
6:22 Then Gideon was certain that he was the angel of the
Lord;
and Gideon said, I am
in fear, O Lord God! for I have seen the
angel of the Lord
face to face.
6:23 But the Lord said to him, Peace be with you; have no
fear:
you are in no danger
of death.
6:24 Then Gideon made an altar there to the Lord, and gave
it
the name Yahweh-shalom;
to this day it is in Ophrah of the
Abiezrites.
6:25 The same night the Lord said to him, Take ten men of
your
servants and an ox
seven years old, and after pulling down the
altar of Baal which
is your father's, and cutting down the holy
tree by its side,
6:26 Make an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this
rock,
in the ordered way
and take the ox and make a burned offering
with the wood of the
holy tree which has been cut down.
6:27 Then Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the
Lord
had said to him; but
fearing to do it by day, because of his
father's people and
the men of the town, he did it by night.
6:28 And the men of the town got up early in the morning,
and
they saw the altar of
Baal broken down, and the holy tree which
was by it cut down,
and the ox offered on the altar which had
been put up there.
6:29 And they said to one another, Who has done this thing?
And
after searching with
care, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash,
has done this thing.
6:30 Then the men of the town said to Joash, Make your son
come
out to be put to
death, for pulling down the altar of Baal and
cutting down the holy
tree which was by it.
6:31 But Joash said to all those who were attacking him,
Will
you take up the cause
of Baal? will you be his saviour? Let
anyone who will take
up his cause be put to death while it is
still morning: if he
is a god, let him take up his cause
himself because of
the pulling down of his altar.
6:32 So that day he gave him the name of Jerubbaal, saying,
Let
Baal take up his
cause against him because his altar has been
broken down.
6:33 Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the
people
of the east, banding
themselves together, went over and put up
their tents in the
valley of Jezreel.
6:34 But the spirit of the Lord came on Gideon; and at the
sound
of his horn all
Abiezer came together after him.
6:35 And he sent through all Manasseh, and they came after
him;
and he sent to Asher
and Zebulun and Naphtali, and they came up
and were joined to
the others.
6:36 Then Gideon said to God, If you are going to give
Israel
salvation by my hand,
as you have said,
6:37 See, I will put the wool of a sheep on the grain-floor;
if
there is dew on the
wool only, while all the earth is dry, then
I will be certain
that it is your purpose to give Israel
salvation by my hand
as you have said.
6:38 And it was so: for he got up early on the morning
after,
and twisting the wool
in his hands, he got a basin full of
water from the dew on
the wool.
6:39 Then Gideon said to God, Do not be moved to wrath
against
me if I say only
this: let me make one more test with the wool;
let the wool now be
dry, while the earth is covered with dew.
6:40 And that night God did so; for the wool was dry, and
there
was dew on all the
earth round it.
7:1 Then Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon, and all the people with
him, got up early and
put up their tents by the side of the
water-spring of
Harod; the tents of Midian were on the north
side of him, under
the hill of Moreh in the valley.
7:2 And the Lord said to Gideon, So great is the number of
your
people, that if I
give the Midianites into their hands they
will be uplifted in
pride over me and will say, I myself have
been my saviour.
7:3 So now, let it be given out to the people that anyone
who is
shaking with fear is
to go back from Mount Galud. So twenty-two
thousand of the
people went back, but there were still ten
thousand.
7:4 Then the Lord said to Gideon, There are still more
people
than is necessary;
take them down to the water so that I may
put them to the test
for you there; then whoever I say is to go
with you will go, and
whoever I say is not to go will not go.
7:5 So he took the people down to the water; and the Lord
said
to Gideon, Put on one
side by themselves all those drinking up
the water with their
tongues like a dog; and in the same way,
all those who go down
on their knees to the water while
drinking.
7:6 Now the number of those who took up the water with their
tongues was three
hundred; all the rest of the people went down
on their knees to the
water.
7:7 And the Lord said to Gideon, By those three hundred who
were
drinking with their
tongues I will give you salvation and give
the Midianites into
your hands; let the rest of the people go
away, every man to
his place.
7:8 So they took the vessels of the people, and their horns
from
their hands, and he
sent them away, every man to his tent,
keeping only the
three hundred; and the tents of Midian were
lower down in the
valley.
7:9 The same night the Lord said to him, Up! go down now
against
their army, for I
have given them into your hands.
7:10 But if you have fear of going down, take your servant
Purah
with you and go down to
the tents;
7:11 And after hearing what they are saying, you will get
strength to go down
against the army. So he went down with his
servant Purah to the
outer line of the tents of the armed men.
7:12 Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people
of
the east were
covering the valley like locusts; and their
camels were like the
sand by the seaside, without number.
7:13 When Gideon came there, a man was giving his friend an
account of his dream,
saying, See, I had a dream about a cake
of barley bread
which, falling into the tents of Midian, came
on to the tent,
overturning it so that it was stretched out
flat on the earth.
7:14 And his friend in answer said, This is certainly the
sword
of Gideon, the son of
Joash, the men of Israel: into their
hands God has given
up all the army of Midian.
7:15 Then Gideon, hearing the story of the dream and the
sense
in which they took
it, gave worship; then he went back to the
tents of Israel, and
said, Up! for the Lord has given the army
of Midian into your
hands.
7:16 Then separating the three hundred men into three bands,
he
gave every man a
horn, and a vessel in which was a flaming
branch.
7:17 And he said to them, Keep your eyes on me, and do what
I
do; when I come to
the outer line of tents, whatever I do, you
are to do the same.
7:18 At the sound of my horn, and the horns of those who are
with me, let your
horns be sounded all round the tents, and
say, For the Lord and
for Gideon.
7:19 So Gideon and the three hundred men who were with him
came
to the outer line of
tents, at the start of the middle watch,
when the watchmen had
only then taken their stations; and the
horns were sounded
and the vessels broken.
7:20 So the three bands all gave a loud note on their horns,
and
when the vessels had
been broken, they took the flaming
branches in their
left hands, and the horns in their right
hands ready for
blowing, crying out, For the Lord and for
Gideon.
7:21 Then they made a line round the tents, every man in his
place; and all the
army, awaking from sleep, came running out,
and with loud cries
went in flight.
7:22 And the three hundred gave a loud note on their horns,
and
every man's sword was
turned by the Lord against his brother
all through the army;
and the army went in flight as far as
Beth-shittah in the
direction of Zeredah, to the edge of
Abel-meholah by
Tabbath.
7:23 And the men of Israel came together from Naphtali and
from
Asher and all
Manasseh, and went after Midian.
7:24 Then Gideon sent through all the hill-country of
Ephraim
saying, Come down
against Midian, and keep the ways across
Jordan before they
come. So all the men of Ephraim, massing
themselves together,
kept the ways across Jordan.
7:25 And they took the two chiefs of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb;
and
they put Oreb to
death at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they put
to death at the place
of the grape-crushing in Zeeb, and they
went after Midian;
but the heads of Oreb and Zeeb they took
across Jordan to
Gideon.
8:1 And the men of Ephraim came and said to him, Why did you
not
send for us when you
went to war against Midian? And they said
sharp and angry words
to him.
8:2 And he said to them, What have I done in comparison with
you? Is not that
which Ephraim took up after the grape-cutting
better than all the
grapes which Abiezer got in from the
grape-cutting?
8:3 God has given into your hands the chiefs of Midian, Oreb
and
Zeeb; what have I
been able to do in comparison with you? And
when he said this,
their feeling about him became kinder.
8:4 Then Gideon came to Jordan and went over it with his
three
hundred, overcome
with weariness and in need of food.
8:5 And he said to the men of Succoth, Give bread cakes to
my
people, for they are
overcome with weariness, and I am going on
after Zebah and
Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.
8:6 But the chiefs of Succoth said, Are the hands of Zebah
and
Zalmunna even now in
your hand that we are to give bread to
your army?
8:7 Then Gideon said, Because of this, when the Lord has
given
Zebah and Zalmunna
into my hands, I will have you stretched on
a bed of thorns of
the waste land and on sharp stems, and have
you crushed as grain
is crushed on a grain-floor.
8:8 So he went up from there to Penuel and made the same
request
to the men of Penuel;
but they gave him the same answer as the
men of Succoth had
given.
8:9 So he said to the men of Penuel, When I come back in
peace,
I will have this
tower broken down.
8:10 Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor and their armies
with
them, about fifteen
thousand men, those of all the army of the
children of the east
who were still living; for a hundred and
twenty thousand of
their swordsmen had been put to death.
8:11 And Gideon went up by the way used by the people living
in
tents on the east of
Nobah and Jogbehah, and made an attack on
the army when they
had no thought of danger.
8:12 And Zebah and Zalmunna went in flight; and he went
after
them, and took the
two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and
put all the army to
the curse.
8:13 Then Gideon, the son of Joash, went back from the
fight:
8:14 And taking prisoner a young man of the people of
Succoth,
he got from him, in
answer to his questions, a list of the
chiefs of Succoth and
the responsible men, seventy-seven men.
8:15 So he came to the men of Succoth and said, Here are
Zebah
and Zalmunna, on
account of whom you made sport of me, saying,
Are the hands of
Zebah and Zalmunna even now in your hand, that
we are to give bread
to your army who are overcome with
weariness?
8:16 Then he took the responsible men of the town and had
them
crushed on a bed of
thorns and sharp stems.
8:17 And he had the tower of Penuel broken down and the men
of
the town put to
death.
8:18 Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, Where are the men
whom
you put to death at
Tabor? And they gave answer, As you are, so
were they; every one
of them was like a king's son.
8:19 And he said, They were my brothers, my mother's sons:
by
the life of the Lord,
if you had kept them safe, I would not
put you to death.
8:20 Then he said to Jether, his oldest son, Up! Put them to
death. But the boy
did not take out his sword, fearing because
he was still a boy.
8:21 Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Up! Put an end to us
yourself: for you
have a man's strength. Then Gideon got up and
put Zebah and
Zalmunna to death and took the ornaments which
were on their camels'
necks.
8:22 Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, Be our ruler,
you
and your son and your
son's son after him; for you have been
our saviour from the
hands of Midian.
8:23 But Gideon said to them, I will not be a ruler over
you,
and my son will not
be a ruler over you: it is the Lord who
will be ruler over
you.
8:24 Then Gideon said to them, I have a request to make to
you;
let every man give me
the ear-rings he has taken. (For they had
gold ear-rings,
because they were Ishmaelites.)
8:25 And they gave answer, We will gladly give them. So they
put
down a robe, every
man dropping into it the ear-rings he had
taken.
8:26 The weight of the gold ear-rings which he got from them
was
one thousand, seven
hundred shekels of gold; in addition to the
moon-ornaments and
jewels and the purple robes which were on
the kings of Midian,
and the chains on their camels' necks.
8:27 And Gideon made an ephod from them and put it up in his
town Ophrah; and all
Israel went after it there and were false
to the Lord; and it
became a cause of sin to Gideon and his
house.
8:28 So Midian was broken before the children of Israel and
the
Midianites never got
back their strength. And the land had
peace for forty
years, in the days of Gideon.
8:29 And Jerubbaal, the son of Joash, went back to his house
and
was living there.
8:30 Gideon had seventy sons, the offspring of his body; for
he
had a number of
wives.
8:31 And the servant-wife he had in Shechem had a son by
him, to
whom he gave the name
Abimelech.
8:32 And Gideon, the son of Joash, came to his end when he
was
very old, and his
body was put in the resting-place of Joash
his father, in Ophrah
of the Abiezrites.
8:33 And after the death of Gideon, the children of Israel
again
went after the gods
of Canaan and were false to the Lord, and
made Baal-berith
their god.
8:34 And the children of Israel did not keep in their minds
the
Lord their God, who
had been their saviour from all their
haters on every side;
8:35 And they were not kind to the house of Jerubbaal, that
is,
Gideon, in reward for
all the good he had done to Israel.
9:1 Now Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal, went to Shechem to
his
mother's family, and
said to them and to all the family of his
mother's father,
9:2 Say now in the ears of all the townsmen of Shechem, Is
it
better for you to be
ruled by all the seventy sons of Jerubbaal
or by one man only?
And keep in mind that I am your bone and
your flesh.
9:3 So his mother's family said all this about him in the
ears
of all the townsmen
of Shechem: and their hearts were turned to
Abimelech, for they
said, He is our brother.
9:4 And they gave him seventy shekels of silver from the
house
of Baal-berith, with
which Abimelech got the support of a
number of
uncontrolled and good-for-nothing persons.
9:5 Then he went to his father's house at Ophrah, and put
his
brothers, the seventy
sons of Jerubbaal, to death on the same
stone; however,
Jotham, the youngest, kept himself safe by
going away to a
secret place.
9:6 And all the townsmen of Shechem and all Beth-millo came
together and went and
made Abimelech their king, by the oak of
the pillar in
Shechem.
9:7 Now Jotham, on hearing of it, went to the top of Mount
Gerizim, and crying
out with a loud voice said to them, Give
ear to me, you
townsmen of Shechem, so that God may give ear to
you.
9:8 One day the trees went out to make a king for
themselves;
and they said to the
olive-tree, Be king over us.
9:9 But the olive-tree said to them, Am I to give up my
wealth
of oil, by which men
give honour to God, and go waving over the
trees?
9:10 Then the trees said to the fig-tree, You come and be
king
over us.
9:11 But the fig-tree said to them, Am I to give up my sweet
taste and my good
fruit and go waving over the trees?
9:12 Then the trees said to the vine, You come and be king
over
us.
9:13 But the vine said to them, Am I to give up my wine,
which
makes glad God and
men, to go waving over the trees?
9:14 Then all the trees said to the thorn, You come and be
king
over us.
9:15 And the thorn said to the trees, If it is truly your desire
to make me your king,
then come and put your faith in my shade;
and if not, may fire
come out of the thorn, burning up the
cedars of Lebanon.
9:16 So now, if you have done truly and uprightly in making
Abimelech king, and
if you have done well to Jerubbaal and his
house in reward for
the work of his hands;
9:17 (For my father made war for you, and put his life in
danger, and made you
free from the hands of Midian;
9:18 And you have gone against my father's family this day,
and
have put to death his
sons, even seventy men on one stone, and
have made Abimelech,
the son of his servant-wife, king over the
townsmen of Shechem
because he is your brother;)
9:19 If then you have done what is true and upright to
Jerubbaal
and his family this
day, may you have joy in Abimelech, and may
he have joy in you;
9:20 But if not, may fire come out from Abimelech, burning
up
the townsmen of
Shechem and Beth-millo; and may fire come out
from the townsmen of
Shechem and Beth-millo, for the
destruction of Abimelech.
9:21 Then Jotham straight away went in flight to Beer, and
was
living there for fear
of his brother Abimelech.
9:22 So Abimelech was chief over Israel for three years.
9:23 And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the
townsmen of Shechem;
and the townsmen of Shechem were false to
Abimelech;
9:24 So that punishment for the violent attack made on the
seventy sons of
Jerubbaal, and for their blood, might come on
Abimelech, their
brother, who put them to death, and on the
townsmen of Shechem
who gave him their help in putting his
brothers to death.
9:25 And the townsmen of Shechem put secret watchers on the
tops
of the mountains, and
they made attacks on all who went by on
the road and took
their goods; and word of this came to
Abimelech.
9:26 Then Gaal, the son of Ebed, came with his brothers, and
went over to Shechem;
and the men of Shechem put their faith in
him.
9:27 And they went out into their fields and got in the
fruit of
their vines, and when
the grapes had been crushed, they made a
holy feast and went
into the house of their god, and over their
food and drink they
were cursing Abimelech.
9:28 And Gaal, the son of Ebed, said, Who is Abimelech and
who
is Shechem, that we
are to be his servants? Is it not right for
the son of Jerubbaal
and Zebul his captain to be servants to
the men of Hamor, the
father of Shechem? But why are we to be
his servants?
9:29 If only I had authority over this people! I would put
Abimelech out of the
way, and I would say to Abimelech, Make
your army strong, and
come out.
9:30 Now Zebul, the ruler of the town, hearing what Gaal,
the
son of Ebed, had
said, was moved to wrath.
9:31 And he sent to Abimelech at Arumah, saying, See, Gaal,
the
son of Ebed, and his
brothers have come to Shechem, and they
are working up the
town against you.
9:32 So now, get up by night, you and your people, and keep
watch in the field
secretly;
9:33 And in the morning, when the sun is up, get up early
and
make a rush on the
town; and when he and his people come out
against you, do to
them whatever you have a chance to do.
9:34 So Abimelech and the people with him got up by night,
in
four bands, to make a
surprise attack on Shechem.
9:35 And Gaal, the son of Ebed, went out, and took his place
at
the doorway into the
town; then Abimelech and his people got up
from the place where
they had been waiting.
9:36 And when Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, See!
people
are coming down from
the tops of the mountains. And Zebul said
to him, You see the
shade of the mountains like men.
9:37 And Gaal said again, See! people are coming down from
the
middle of the land,
and one band is coming by way of the
oak-tree of the
Seers.
9:38 Then Zebul said to him, Now where is your loud talk
when
you said, Who is
Abimelech that we are to be his servants? Is
this not the people
whom you were rating so low? Go out now,
and make war on them.
9:39 So Gaal went out at the head of the townsmen of Shechem
and
made war on Abimelech.
9:40 And Abimelech went after him and he went in flight
before
him; and a great
number were falling by the sword all the way
up to the town.
9:41 Then Abimelech went back to Arumah; and Zebul sent Gaal
and
his brothers away and
would not let them go on living in
Shechem.
9:42 Now the day after, the people went out into the fields;
and
news of it came to
Abimelech.
9:43 And he took his people, separating them into three
bands,
and was waiting
secretly in the field; and when he saw the
people coming out of
the town, he went up and made an attack on
them.
9:44 And Abimelech with his band made a rush, and took up
their
position at the
doorway into the town; and the other two bands
made a rush on all
those who were in the fields, and overcame
them.
9:45 And all that day Abimelech was fighting against the
town;
and he took it, and
put to death the people who were in it, and
had the town pulled
down and covered with salt.
9:46 Then all the townsmen of the tower of Shechem, hearing
of
it, went into the
inner room of the house of El-berith.
9:47 And word was given to Abimelech that all the men of the
tower of Shechem were
there together.
9:48 Then Abimelech went up to Mount Zalmon, with all his
people; and Abimelech
took an axe in his hand and, cutting down
branches of trees,
took them and put them on his back. And he
said to the people
who were with him, Be quick and do as you
have seen me do.
9:49 So all the people got branches, every man cutting down
a
branch, and they went
with Abimelech at their head and, massing
the branches against
the inner room, put fire to the room over
them; so all those
who were in the tower of Shechem, about a
thousand men and
women, were burned to death with it.
9:50 Then Abimelech went to Thebez, and put his army in
position
against Thebez and
took it.
9:51 But in the middle of the town there was a strong tower,
to
which all the men and
women of the town went in flight and,
shutting themselves
in, went up to the roof of the tower.
9:52 And Abimelech came to the tower and made an attack on
it,
and got near to the
door of the tower for the purpose of firing
it.
9:53 But a certain woman sent a great stone, such as is used
for
crushing grain, on to
the head of Abimelech, cracking the bone.
9:54 Then quickly crying out to his body-servant, he said to
him, Take out your
sword and put an end to me straight away, so
that men may not say
of me, His death was the work of a woman.
So the young man put
his sword through him, causing his death.
9:55 And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead,
they went away, every
man to his place.
9:56 In this way Abimelech was rewarded by God for the evil
he
had done to his
father in putting his seventy brothers to
death;
9:57 And God sent back on to the heads of the men of Shechem
all
the evil they had
done, and the curse of Jotham, the son of
Jerubbaal, came on
them.
10:1 Now after Abimelech, Tola, the son of Puah, the son of
Dodo, a man of
Issachar, became the saviour of Israel; he was
living in Shamir in
the hill-country of Ephraim.
10:2 He was judge over Israel for twenty-three years; and at
his
death his body was
put to rest in the earth in Shamir.
10:3 And after him came Jair the Gileadite, who was judge
over
Israel for twenty-two
years.
10:4 And he had thirty sons, who went on thirty young asses;
and
they had thirty towns
in the land of Gilead, which are named
Havvoth-Jair to this
day.
10:5 And at the death of Jair his body was put to rest in
the
earth in Kamon.
10:6 And again the children of Israel did evil in the eyes
of
the Lord, worshipping
the Baals and Astartes, and the gods of
Aram and the gods of
Zidon and the gods of Moab and the gods of
the children of Ammon
and the gods of the Philistines; they
gave up the Lord and
were servants to him no longer.
10:7 And the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel,
and
he gave them up into
the hands of the Philistines and into the
hands of the children
of Ammon.
10:8 And that year the children of Israel were crushed under
their yoke; for
eighteen years all the children of Israel on
the other side of
Jordan, in the land of the Amorites which is
in Gilead, were
cruelly crushed down.
10:9 And the children of Ammon went over Jordan, to make war
against Judah and
Benjamin and the house of Ephraim; and Israel
was in great trouble.
10:10 Then the children of Israel, crying out to the Lord,
said,
Great is our sin
against you, for we have given up our God and
have been servants to
the Baals.
10:11 And the Lord said to the children of Israel, Were not
the
Egyptians and the
Amorites and the children of Ammon and the
Philistines
10:12 And the Zidonians and Amalek and Midian crushing you
down,
and in answer to your
cry did I not give you salvation from
their hands?
10:13 But, for all this, you have given me up and have been
servants to other
gods: so I will be your saviour no longer.
10:14 Go, send up your cry for help to the gods of your
selection; let them
be your saviours in the time of your
trouble.
10:15 And the children of Israel said to the Lord, We are
sinners; do to us
whatever seems good to you: only give us
salvation this day.
10:16 So they put away the strange gods from among them, and
became the Lord's
servants; and his soul was angry because of
the sorrows of
Israel.
10:17 Then the children of Ammon came together and put their
army in position in
Gilead. And the children of Israel came
together and put
their army in position in Mizpah.
10:18 And the people of Israel said to one another, Who will
be
the first to make an
attack on the children of Ammon? We will
make him head over
all Gilead.
11:1 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a great man of war; he
was
the son of a loose
woman, and Gilead was his father.
11:2 And Gilead's wife gave birth to sons, and when her sons
became men, they sent
Jephthah away, saying, You have no part
in the heritage of
our father's house, for you are the son of
another woman.
11:3 So Jephthah went in flight from his brothers and was
living
in the land of Tob,
where a number of good-for-nothing men,
joining Jephthah,
went out with him on his undertakings.
11:4 Now after a time the children of Ammon made war against
Israel.
11:5 And when the children of Ammon made war against Israel,
the
responsible men of Gilead
went to get Jephthah back from the
land of Tob;
11:6 And they said to Jephthah, Come and be our chief so
that we
may make war against
the children of Ammon.
11:7 But Jephthah said to the responsible men of Gilead, Did
you
not, in your hate for
me, send me away from my father's house?
Why do you come to me
now when you are in trouble?
11:8 And the responsible men of Gilead said to Jephthah,
That is
the reason we have
come back to you; so go with us and make war
against the children
of Ammon, and we will make you our head
over all the people
of Gilead.
11:9 Then Jephthah said to the responsible men of Gilead, If
you
take me back to make
war against the children of Ammon, and if
with the help of the
Lord I overcome them, will you make me
your head?
11:10 And the responsible men of Gilead said to Jephthah,
May
the Lord be our
witness: we will certainly do as you say.
11:11 So Jephthah went with the responsible men of Gilead,
and
the people made him
head and chief over them; and Jephthah said
all these things
before the Lord in Mizpah.
11:12 Then Jephthah sent men to the king of the children of
Ammon, saying, What
have you against me that you have come to
make war against my
land?
11:13 And the king of the children of Ammon said to the men
sent
by Jephthah, Because
Israel, when he came up out of Egypt, took
away my land, from
the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and as far as
Jordan: so now, give
me back those lands quietly.
11:14 And Jephthah sent again to the king of the children of
Ammon,
11:15 And said to him, This is the word of Jephthah: Israel
did
not take away the
land of Moab or the land of the children of
Ammon;
11:16 But when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through
the
waste land to the Red
Sea and came to Kadesh;
11:17 Then Israel sent men to the king of Edom saying, Let
me
now go through your
land; but the king of Edom did not give ear
to them. And in the
same way he sent to the king of Moab, but
he would not; so Israel
went on living in Kadesh.
11:18 Then he went on through the waste land and round the
land
of Edom and the land
of Moab, and came by the east side of the
land of Moab, and put
up their tents on the other side of the
Arnon; they did not
come inside the limit of Moab, for the
Arnon was the limit
of Moab.
11:19 And Israel sent men to Sihon, king of the Amorites,
the
king of Heshbon; and
Israel said to him, Let me now go through
your land to my
place.
11:20 But Sihon would not give way and let Israel go through
his
land; and Sihon got
together all his people, and put his army
in position in Jahaz,
and made war on Israel.
11:21 And the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all
his
people into the hands
of Israel, and they overcame them; so all
the land of the
Amorites, the people of that land, became
Israel's.
11:22 All the limit of the Amorites was theirs, from the
Arnon
as far as the Jabbok
and from the waste land even to Jordan.
11:23 So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has taken away
their
land from the
Amorites and given it to his people Israel; are
you then to have it?
11:24 Do you not keep the lands of those whom Chemosh your
god
sends out from before
you? So we will keep all the lands of
those whom the Lord
our God sends out from before us.
11:25 What! are you any better than Balak, the son of
Zippor,
king of Moab? Did he
ever take up a cause against Israel or
make war against
them?
11:26 While Israel was living in Heshbon and its daughter-towns
and in Aroer and its
daughter-towns and in all the towns which
are by the side of
the Arnon, for three hundred years, why did
you not get them back
at that time?
11:27 So I have done no wrong against you, but you are doing
wrong to me in fighting
against me: may the Lord, who is Judge
this day, be judge
between the children of Israel and the
children of Ammon.
11:28 The king of the children of Ammon, however, did not
give
ear to the words
which Jephthah sent to him.
11:29 Then the spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah, and he
went
through Gilead and
Manasseh, and came to Mizpeh of Gilead; and
from Mizpeh of Gilead
he went over to the children of Ammon.
11:30 And Jephthah took an oath to the Lord, and said, If
you
will give the
children of Ammon into my hands,
11:31 Then whoever comes out from the door of my house,
meeting
me when I come back
in peace from the children of Ammon, will
be the Lord's and I
will give him as a burned offering.
11:32 So Jephthah went over to the children of Ammon to make
war
on them; and the Lord
gave them into his hands.
11:33 And he made an attack on them from Aroer all the way
to
Minnith, overrunning
twenty towns, as far as Abel-cheramim, and
put great numbers to
the sword. So the children of Ammon were
crushed before the
children of Israel.
11:34 Then Jephthah came back to his house in Mizpah, and
his
daughter came out,
meeting him on his way with music and with
dances; she was his
only child; he had no other sons or
daughters.
11:35 And when he saw her he was overcome with grief, and
said,
Ah! my daughter! I am
crushed with sorrow, and it is you who
are the chief cause
of my trouble; for I have made an oath to
the Lord and I may
not take it back.
11:36 And she said to him, My father, you have made an oath
to
the Lord; do then to
me whatever you have said; for the Lord
has sent a full
reward on your haters, on the children of
Ammon.
11:37 Then she said to her father, Only do this for me: let
me
have two months to go
away into the mountains with my friends,
weeping for my sad
fate.
11:38 And he said, Go then. So he sent her away for two
months;
and she went with her
friends to the mountains, weeping for her
sad fate.
11:39 And at the end of two months she went back to her father,
who did with her as
he had said in his oath: and she had never
been touched by a
man. So it became a rule in Israel,
11:40 For the women to go year by year sorrowing for the
daughter of Jephthah
the Gileadite, four days in every year.
12:1 Now the men of Ephraim came together and took up arms
and
went over to Zaphon;
and they said to Jephthah, Why did you go
over to make war
against the children of Ammon without sending
for us to go with
you? Now we will put your house on fire over
you.
12:2 And Jephthah said to them, I and my people were in
danger,
and the children of
Ammon were very cruel to us, and when I
sent for you, you
gave me no help against them.
12:3 So when I saw that there was no help to be had from
you, I
put my life in my
hand and went over against the children of
Ammon, and the Lord
gave them into my hands: why then have you
come up to me this
day to make war on me?
12:4 Then Jephthah got together all the men of Gilead and
made
war on Ephraim; and
the men of Gilead overcame Ephraim.
12:5 And the Gileadites took the crossing-places of Jordan
against the
Ephraimites; and when any of the men of Ephraim who
had gone in flight
said, let me go over; the men of Gilead said
to him, Are you an
Ephraimite? And if he said, No;
12:6 Then they said to him, Now say Shibboleth; and he said
Sibboleth, and was
not able to say it in the right way; then
they took him and put
him to death at the crossing-places of
Jordan; and at that
time forty-two thousand Ephraimites were
put to death.
12:7 Now Jephthah was judge of Israel for six years. And
Jephthah the
Gileadite came to his death, and his body was put
to rest in his town,
Mizpeh of Gilead.
12:8 And after him, Ibzan of Beth-lehem was judge of Israel.
12:9 He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters whom he sent
to
other places, and he
got thirty wives from other places for his
sons. And he was
judge of Israel for seven years.
12:10 And Ibzan came to his death and his body was put to
rest
at Beth-lehem.
12:11 And after him, Elon the Zebulonite was judge of
Israel;
and he was judge of
Israel for ten years.
12:12 And Elon the Zebulonite came to his death, and his
body
was put to rest in
Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.
12:13 And after him, Abdon, the son of Hillel, the
Pirathonite,
was judge of Israel.
12:14 He had forty sons and thirty sons' sons who went on
seventy young asses;
and he was judge of Israel for eight
years.
12:15 And Abdon, the son of Hillel, came to his death, and
his
body was put to rest
in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the
hill-country of the
Amalekites.
13:1 And the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes
of
the Lord; and the
Lord gave them into the hands of the
Philistines for forty
years.
13:2 Now there was a certain man of Zorah of the family of
the
Danites, and his name
was Manoah; and his wife had never given
birth to a child.
13:3 And the angel of the Lord came to the woman, and said
to
her, See now! though
you have never given birth to children,
you will be with
child and give birth to a son.
13:4 Now then take care to have no wine or strong drink and
to
take no unclean thing
for food;
13:5 For you are with child and will give birth to a son;
his
hair is never to be
cut, for the child is to be separate to God
from his birth; and
he will take up the work of freeing Israel
from the hands of the
Philistines.
13:6 Then the woman came in, and said to her husband, A man
came
to me, and his form
was like the form of a god, causing great
fear; I put no
question to him about where he came from, and he
did not give me his
name;
13:7 But he said to me, You are with child and will give
birth
to a son; and now do
not take any wine or strong drink or let
anything unclean be
your food; for the child will be separate
to God from his birth
to the day of his death.
13:8 Then Manoah made prayer to the Lord, and said, O Lord,
let
the man of God whom
you sent come to us again and make clear to
us what we are to do
for the child who is to come.
13:9 And God gave ear to the voice of Manoah; and the angel
of
God came to the woman
again when she was seated in the field;
but her husband
Manoah was not with her.
13:10 So the woman, running quickly, gave her husband the
news,
saying, I have seen
the man who came to me the other day.
13:11 And Manoah got up and went after his wife, and came up
to
the man and said to
him, Are you the man who was talking to
this woman? And he
said, I am.
13:12 And Manoah said, Now when your words come true, what
is to
be the rule for the
child and what will be his work?
13:13 And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Let the
woman
take note of what I
have said to her.
13:14 She is to have nothing which comes from the vine for
her
food, and let her
take no wine or strong drink or anything
which is unclean; let
her take care to do all I have given her
orders to do.
13:15 And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, Now let us
keep
you while we make
ready a young goat for you.
13:16 And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Though you
keep
me I will not take of
your food; but if you will make a burned
offering, let it be
offered to the Lord. For it had not come
into Manoah's mind
that he was the angel of the Lord.
13:17 Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, What is
your
name, so that when
your words come true we may give you honour?
13:18 But the angel of the Lord said to him, Why are you
questioning me about
my name, seeing that it is a wonder?
13:19 So Manoah took the young goat with its meal offering,
offering it on the
rock to the Lord, who did strange things.
13:20 And when the flame went up to heaven from the altar,
the
angel of the Lord
went up in the flame of the altar, while
Manoah and his wife
were looking on; and they went down on
their faces to the
earth.
13:21 But the angel of the Lord was seen no more by Manoah
and
his wife. Then it was
clear to Manoah that he was the angel of
the Lord.
13:22 And Manoah said to his wife, Death will certainly be
our
fate, for it is a god
whom we have seen.
13:23 But his wife said to him, If the Lord was purposing
our
death, he would not
have taken our burned offering and our meal
offering, or have
given us such orders about the child.
13:24 So the woman gave birth to a son, and gave him the
name
Samson; and he became
a man and the blessing of the Lord was on
him.
13:25 And the spirit of the Lord first came on him in
Mahaneh-dan, between
Zorah and Eshtaol.
14:1 Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in
Timnah,
of the daughters of
the Philistines;
14:2 And when he came back he said to his father and mother,
I
have seen a woman in
Timnah, of the daughters of the
Philistines: get her
now for me for my wife.
14:3 Then his father and mother said to him, Is there no
woman
among the daughters
of your relations or among all my people,
that you have to go
for your wife to the Philistines, who are
without circumcision?
But Samson said to his father, Get her
for me, for she is
pleasing to me.
14:4 Now his father and mother had no knowledge that this
was
the purpose of the
Lord, who had the destruction of the
Philistines in mind.
Now the Philistines at that time were
ruling over Israel.
14:5 Then Samson went down to Timnah (and his father and his
mother,) and came to
the vine-gardens of Timnah; and a young
lion came rushing out
at him.
14:6 And the spirit of the Lord came on him with power, and,
unarmed as he was,
pulling the lion in two as one might do to a
young goat, he put
him to death; (but he said nothing to his
father and mother of
what he had done.)
14:7 So he went down and had talk with the woman; and she
was
pleasing to Samson.
14:8 Then after a time he went back to take her; and turning
from the road to see
the dead body of the lion, he saw a mass
of bees in the body
of the lion, and honey there.
14:9 And he took the honey in his hand, and went on, tasting
it
on the way; and when
he came to his father and mother he gave
some to them; but did
not say that he had taken the honey from
the body of the lion.
14:10 Then Samson went down to the woman, and made a feast
there, as was the way
among young men.
14:11 And he took thirty friends, and they were with him.
14:12 And Samson said, Now I have a hard question for you:
if
you are able to give
me the answer before the seven days of the
feast are over, I
will give you thirty linen robes and thirty
changes of clothing;
14:13 But if you are not able to give me the answer, then
you
will have to give me
thirty linen robes and thirty changes of
clothing. And they
said to him, Put your hard question and let
us see what it is.
14:14 And he said, Out of the taker of food came food, and
out
of the strong came
the sweet. And at the end of three days they
were still not able
to give the answer.
14:15 So on the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, Get
from
your husband the
answer to his question by some trick or other,
or we will have you
and your father's house burned with fire;
did you get us here
to take all we have?
14:16 Then Samson's wife, weeping over him, said, Truly you
have
no love for me but
only hate; you have put a hard question to
the children of my
people and have not given me the answer. And
he said to her, See,
I have not given the answer even to my
father or my mother;
am I to give it to you?
14:17 And all the seven days of the feast she went on
weeping
over him; and on the
seventh day he gave her the answer,
because she gave him
no peace; and she sent word of it to the
children of her
people.
14:18 Then on the seventh day, before he went into the
bride's
room, the men of the
town said to him, What is sweeter than
honey? and what is
stronger than a lion? And he said to them,
If you had not been
ploughing with my cow you would not have
got the answer to my
question.
14:19 And the spirit of the Lord came rushing on him, and he
went down to Ashkelon
and, attacking thirty men there, took
their clothing from
them, and gave it to the men who had given
the answer to his
hard question. Then, full of wrath, he went
back to his father's
house.
14:20 But Samson's wife was given to the friend who had been
his
best man.
15:1 Now a short time after, at the time of the
grain-cutting,
Samson, taking with
him a young goat, went to see his wife; and
he said, I will go in
to my wife into the bride's room. But her
father would not let
him go in.
15:2 And her father said, It seemed to me that you had only
hate
for her; so I gave
her to your friend: but is not her younger
sister fairer than
she? so please take her in place of the
other.
15:3 Then Samson said to them, This time I will give payment
in
full to the
Philistines, for I am going to do them great evil.
15:4 So Samson went and got three hundred foxes and some
sticks
of fire-wood; and he
put the foxes tail to tail with a stick
between every two
tails;
15:5 Then firing the sticks, he let the foxes loose among
the
uncut grain of the
Philistines, and all the corded stems as
well as the living
grain and the vine-gardens and the olives
went up in flames.
15:6 Then the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they
said, Samson, the
son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took
his wife and gave her
to his friend. So the Philistines came up
and had her and her
father's house burned.
15:7 And Samson said to them, If you go on like this, truly
I
will take my full
payment from you; and that will be the end of
it.
15:8 And he made an attack on them, driving them in
uncontrolled
flight, and causing
great destruction; then he went away to his
safe place in the
crack of the rock at Etam.
15:9 Then the Philistines went and put up their tents in
Judah,
all round Lehi.
15:10 And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up
against
us? And they said, We
have come up to take Samson, and to do to
him as he has done to
us.
15:11 Then three thousand of the men of Judah went down to
the
crack of the rock of
Etam, and said to Samson, Is it not clear
to you that the
Philistines are our rulers? What is this you
have done to us? And
he said to them, I only did to them as
they did to me.
15:12 Then they said to him, We have come down to take you
and
give you up into the
hands of the Philistines. And Samson said
to them, Give me your
oath that you will not make an attack on
me yourselves.
15:13 And they said, No; we will take you and give you up
into
their hands, but
truly we will not put you to death. So
knotting two new
cords round him they took him up from the
rock.
15:14 And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines came out,
meeting him with loud
cries; then the spirit of the Lord came
rushing on him, and
the cords on his arms became like grass
which has been burned
with fire, and the bands came falling off
his hands.
15:15 And taking up the mouth-bone of an ass newly dead,
which
he saw by chance on
the earth, he put to death a thousand men
with it.
15:16 And Samson said, With a red ass's mouth-bone I have
made
them red with blood,
with a red ass's mouth-bone I have sent
destruction on a
thousand men.
15:17 And having said these words, he let the mouth-bone go
out
of his hand; so that
place was named Ramath-lehi.
15:18 After this, he was in great need of water, and crying
out
to the Lord, he said,
You have given this great salvation by
the hand of your
servant, and now need of water will be my
death; and I will be
given into the hands of this people who
are without
circumcision.
15:19 Then God made a crack in the hollow rock in Lehi and
water
came out of it; and
after drinking, his spirit came back to him
and he was strong
again; so that place was named En-hakkore; it
is in Lehi to this
day.
15:20 And he was judge of Israel in the days of the
Philistines
for twenty years.
16:1 Now Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a loose woman
and
went in to her.
16:2 And it was said to the Gazites, Samson is here. So they
went round, watching
for him all day at the doorway of the
town, but at night
they kept quiet, saying, When daylight comes
we will put him to
death.
16:3 And Samson was there till the middle of the night; then
he
got up, and took a
grip on the doors of the town, pulling them
up, together with
their two supports and their locks, and put
them on his back and
took them up to the top of the hill in
front of Hebron.
16:4 Now after this, he was in love with a woman in the
valley
of Sorek, named
Delilah.
16:5 And the chiefs of the Philistines came up to her, and
said
to her, Make use of
your power over him and see what is the
secret of his great
strength, and how we may get the better of
him, and put bands on
him, so that we may make him feeble; and
every one of us will
give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.
16:6 So Delilah said to Samson, Make clear to me now what is
the
secret of your great
strength, and how you may be put in bands
and made feeble.
16:7 And Samson said to her, If seven new bow-cords which
have
never been made dry
are knotted round me, I will become feeble
and will be like any
other man.
16:8 So the chiefs of the Philistines gave her seven new
bow-cords which had
never been made dry, and she had them
tightly knotted round
him.
16:9 Now she had men waiting secretly in the inner room; and
she
said to him, The
Philistines are on you, Samson. And the cords
were broken by him as
a twist of thread is broken when touched
by a flame. So the
secret of his strength did not come to
light.
16:10 Then Delilah said to Samson, See, you have been making
sport of me with
false words; now, say truly how may you be put
in bands?
16:11 And he said to her, If they only put round me new
thick
cords which have
never been used, then I will become feeble and
will be like any
other man.
16:12 So Delilah took new thick cords, knotting them tightly
round him, and said to
him, The Philistines are on you, Samson.
And men were waiting
secretly in the inner room. And the cords
were broken off his
arms like threads.
16:13 Then Delilah said to Samson, Up to now you have made
sport
of me with false
words; now say truly, how may you be put in
bands? And he said to
her, If you get the seven twists of my
hair worked into the
cloth you are making and fixed with the
pin, I will become
feeble and will be like any other man.
16:14 So while he was sleeping she got the seven twists of
his
hair worked into her
cloth and fixed with the pin, and said to
him, The Philistines
are on you, Samson. Then awaking from his
sleep, he got up
quickly, pulling up cloth and machine
together.
16:15 And she said to him, Why do you say you are my lover
when
your heart is not
mine? Three times you have made sport of me,
and have not made
clear to me the secret of your great
strength.
16:16 So day after day she gave him no peace, for ever
questioning him till
his soul was troubled to death.
16:17 And opening all his heart to her, he said to her, My
head
has never been
touched by a blade, for I have been separate to
God from the day of
my birth: if my hair is cut off, then my
strength will go from
me and I will become feeble, and will be
like any other man.
16:18 And when Delilah saw that he had let her see into his
heart, she sent word
to the chiefs of the Philistines saying,
Come up this time,
for he has let out all his heart to me. Then
the chiefs of the
Philistines came to her, with the money in
their hands.
16:19 And she made him go to sleep on her knees; and she
sent
for a man and had his
seven twists of hair cut off; and while
it was being done he
became feeble and his strength went from
him.
16:20 Then she said, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And
awaking from his
sleep, he said, I will go out as at other
times, shaking myself
free. But he was not conscious that the
Lord had gone from
him.
16:21 So the Philistines took him and put out his eyes; then
they took him down to
Gaza, and, chaining him with bands of
brass, put him to
work crushing grain in the prison-house.
16:22 But the growth of his hair was starting again after it
had
been cut off.
16:23 And the chiefs of the Philistines came together to
make a
great offering to
Dagon their god, and to be glad; for they
said, Our god has
given into our hands Samson our hater.
16:24 And when the people saw him, they gave praise to their
god; for they said,
Our god has given into our hands the one
who was fighting
against us, who made our country waste, and
who put great numbers
of us to death.
16:25 Now when their hearts were full of joy, they said,
Send
for Samson to make
sport for us. And they sent for Samson out
of the prison-house,
and he made sport before them; and they
put him between the
pillars.
16:26 And Samson said to the boy who took him by the hand,
Let
me put my hand on the
pillars supporting the house, so that I
may put my back
against them.
16:27 Now the house was full of men and women; and all the
lords
of the Philistines
were there; and about three thousand men and
women were on the
roof, looking on while Samson made sport.
16:28 And Samson, crying out to the Lord, said, O Lord God,
do
have me now in mind,
and do make me strong only this once, O
God, so that I may
take one last payment from the Philistines
for my two eyes.
16:29 Then Samson put his arms round the two middle pillars
supporting the house,
putting his weight on them, on one with
his right hand and on
the other with his left.
16:30 And Samson said, Let death overtake me with the
Philistines. And he
put out all his strength, and the house
came down on the
chiefs and on all the people who were in it.
So the dead whom he
sent to destruction by his death were more
than all those on
whom he had sent destruction in his life.
16:31 Then his brothers and his father's people came down
and
took him up and put
his body to rest in the earth between Zorah
and Eshtaol in the
resting-place of Manoah his father. And he
had been judge of
Israel for twenty years.
17:1 Now there was a man of the hill-country of Ephraim
named
Micah.
17:2 And he said to his mother, The eleven hundred shekels
of
silver which were
taken from you, about which you took an oath
and said in my
hearing, I have given this silver to the Lord
from my hand for
myself, to make a pictured image and a metal
image: see, I have
the silver, for I took it: so now I will
give it back to you.
And his mother said, May the blessing of
the Lord be on my
son.
17:3 And he gave back the eleven hundred shekels of silver
to
his mother, and his
mother said, I have made the silver holy to
the Lord from me for
my son, to make a pictured image and a
metal image.
17:4 So he gave the silver back to his mother. Then his
mother
took two hundred
shekels of silver and gave them to a
metal-worker who made
a pictured image and a metal image from
them: and it was in
the house of Micah.
17:5 And the man Micah had a house of gods; and he made an
ephod
and family gods and
put one of his sons in the position of
priest.
17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man
did as
seemed right to him.
17:7 Now there was a young man living in Beth-lehem-judah,
of
the family of Judah
and a Levite, who was not a townsman of the
place.
17:8 And he went away from the town of Beth-lehem-judah,
looking
for somewhere to make
his living-place; and on his journey he
came to the
hill-country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah.
17:9 And Micah said to him, Where do you come from? And he
said
to him, I am a Levite
from Beth-lehem-judah, and I am looking
for a living-place.
17:10 Then Micah said to him, Make your living-place with
me,
and be a father and a
priest to me, and I will give you ten
shekels of silver a
year and your clothing and food.
17:11 And the Levite said he would make his living-place
with
the man, and he
became to him as one of his sons.
17:12 And Micah gave the position to the Levite, and the
young
man became his
priest, and was in the house of Micah.
17:13 Then Micah said, Now I am certain that the Lord will
do me
good, seeing that the
Levite has become my priest.
18:1 In those days there was no king in Israel, and in those
days the Danites were
looking for a heritage for themselves, to
be their
living-place; for up to that time no distribution of
land had been made to
them among the tribes of Israel.
18:2 So the children of Dan sent five men from among their
number, strong men,
from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to take a look
at the land and make
a search through it; and they said to
them, Go and make a
search through the land; and they came to
the hill-country of
Ephraim, to the house of Micah, where they
made a stop for the
night.
18:3 When they were near the house of Micah, hearing a voice
which was not strange
to them, that of the young Levite, they
went out of their
road to his place, and said to him, How did
you come here? and
what are you doing in this place? and why
are you here?
18:4 And he said to them, This is what Micah did for me, and
he
gave me payment and I
became his priest.
18:5 Then they said, Do get directions from God for us, to
see
if the journey on
which we are going will have a good outcome.
18:6 And the priest said to them, Go in peace: your way is
guided by the Lord.
18:7 Then the five men went on their way and came to Laish
and
saw the people who
were there, living without thought of
danger, like the
Zidonians, quiet and safe; for they had
everything on earth
for their needs, and they were far from the
Zidonians and had no
business with Aram.
18:8 So they came back to their brothers in Zorah and
Eshtaol,
and their brothers
said to them, What news have you?
18:9 And they said, Up! and let us go against Laish; for we
have
seen the land, and it
is very good: why are you doing nothing?
Do not be slow to go
in and take the land for your heritage.
18:10 When you come there you will come to a people living
without thought of
danger; and the land is wide, and God has
given it into your
hands: a place where there is everything on
earth for man's
needs.
18:11 So six hundred men of the Danites from Zorah and
Eshtaol
went out armed with
instruments of war.
18:12 And they went up and put up their tents in
Kiriath-jearim
in Judah: so that
place is named Mahaneh-dan to this day. It is
to the west of
Kiriath-jearim.
18:13 From there they went on to the hill-country of Ephraim
and
came to the house of
Micah.
18:14 Then the five men who had gone to make a search
through
the country of Laish,
said to their brothers, Have you
knowledge that in
these houses there is an ephod and family
gods and a pictured
image and a metal image? So now you see
what to do.
18:15 And turning from their road they came to the house of
the
young Levite, the
house of Micah, and said to him, Is it well
with you?
18:16 And the six hundred armed men of the Danites took
their
places by the doorway.
18:17 Then the five men who had gone to make a search
through
the land, went in and
took the pictured image and the ephod and
the family gods and
the metal image; and the priest was by the
doorway with the six
hundred armed men.
18:18 And when they went into Micah's house and took out the
pictured image and
the ephod and the family gods and the metal
image, the priest
said to them, What are you doing?
18:19 And they said to him, Be quiet; say nothing, and come
with
us and be our father
and priest; is it better for you to be
priest to one man's
house or to be priest to a tribe and a
family in Israel?
18:20 Then the priest's heart was glad, and he took the
ephod
and the family gods
and the pictured image and went with the
people.
18:21 So they went on their way again, putting the little
ones
and the oxen and the
goods in front of them.
18:22 When they had gone some way from the house of Micah,
the
men from the houses
near Micah's house came together and
overtook the children
of Dan,
18:23 Crying out to them. And the Danites, turning round,
said
to Micah, What is
your trouble, that you have taken up arms?
18:24 And he said, You have taken my gods which I made, and
my
priest, and have gone
away; what is there for me now? Why then
do you say to me,
What is your trouble?
18:25 And the children of Dan said to him, Say no more, or
men
of bitter spirit may
make an attack on you, causing loss of
your life and the
lives of your people.
18:26 Then the children of Dan went on their way; and when
Micah
saw that they were
stronger than he, he went back to his house.
18:27 And they took that which Micah had made, and his
priest,
and came to Laish, to
a people living quietly and without
thought of danger,
and they put them to the sword without
mercy, burning down
their town.
18:28 And they had no saviour, because it was far from
Zidon,
and they had no
business with Aram; and it was in the valley
which is the property
of Beth-rehob. And building up the town
again they took it
for their living-place.
18:29 And they gave the town the name of Dan, after Dan
their
father, who was the
son of Israel: though the town had been
named Laish at first.
18:30 (And the children of Dan put up the pictured image for
themselves; and
Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses,
and his sons were
priests for the tribe of the Danites till the
day when the ark was
taken prisoner.)
18:31 And they put up for themselves the image which Micah
had
made, and it was
there all the time that the house of God was
in Shiloh.
19:1 Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a
certain Levite was
living in the inmost parts of the
hill-country of
Ephraim, and he got for himself a servant-wife
from
Beth-lehem-judah.
19:2 And his servant-wife was angry with him, and went away
from
him to her father's
house at Beth-lehem-judah, and was there
for four months.
19:3 Then her husband got up and went after her, with the
purpose of talking
kindly to her, and taking her back with him;
he had with him his
young man and two asses: and she took him
into her father's
house, and her father, when he saw him, came
forward to him with
joy.
19:4 And his father-in-law, the girl's father, kept him
there
for three days; and
they had food and drink and took their rest
there.
19:5 Now on the fourth day they got up early in the morning
and
he made ready to go
away; but the girl's father said to his
son-in-law, Take a
little food to keep up your strength, and
then go on your way.
19:6 So seating themselves they had food and drink, the two
of
them together; and
the girl's father said to the man, If it is
your pleasure, take
your rest here tonight, and let your heart
be glad.
19:7 And the man got up to go away, but his father-in-law
would
not let him go, so he
took his rest there again for the night.
19:8 Then early on the morning of the fifth day he got up to
go
away; but the girl's
father said, Keep up your strength; so the
two of them had a
meal, and the man and his woman and his
servant did not go
till after the middle of the day.
19:9 And when they got up to go away, his father-in-law, the
girl's father, said
to him, Now evening is coming on, so do not
go tonight; see, the
day is almost gone; take your rest here
and let your heart be
glad, and tomorrow early, go on your way
back to your house.
19:10 But the man would not be kept there that night, and he
got
up and went away and
came opposite to Jebus (which is
Jerusalem); and he
had with him the two asses, ready for
travelling, and his
woman.
19:11 When they got near Jebus the day was far gone; and the
servant said to his
master, Now let us go from our road into
this town of the
Jebusites and take our night's rest there.
19:12 But his master said to him, We will not go out of our
way
into a strange town,
whose people are not of the children of
Israel; but we will
go on to Gibeah.
19:13 And he said to his servant, Come, let us go on to one
of
these places, stopping
for the night in Gibeah or Ramah.
19:14 So they went on their way; and the sun went down when
they
were near Gibeah in
the land of Benjamin.
19:15 And they went off the road there with the purpose of
stopping for the
night in Gibeah: and he went in, seating
himself in the street
of the town, for no one took them into
his house for the
night.
19:16 Now when it was evening they saw an old man coming
back
from his work in the
fields; he was from the hill-country of
Ephraim and was
living in Gibeah: but the men of the place were
Benjamites.
19:17 And when he saw the traveller in the street of the
town,
the old man said,
Where are you going? and where do you come
from?
19:18 And he said to him, We are on our way from
Beth-lehem-judah to
the inmost parts of the hill-country of
Ephraim: I came from
there and went to Beth-lehem-judah: now I
am on my way back to
my house, but no man will take me into his
house.
19:19 But we have dry grass and food for our asses, as well
as
bread and wine for
me, and for the woman, and for the young man
with us: we have no
need of anything.
19:20 And the old man said, Peace be with you; let all your
needs be my care;
only do not take your rest in the street.
19:21 So he took them into his house and gave the asses
food;
and after washing
their feet they took food and drink.
19:22 While they were taking their pleasure at the meal, the
good-for-nothing men
of the town came round the house, giving
blows on the door;
and they said to the old man, the master of
the house, Send out
that man who came to your house, so that we
may take our pleasure
with him.
19:23 So the man, the master of the house, went out to them,
and
said, No, my
brothers, do not this evil thing; this man has
come into my house,
and you are not to do him this wrong.
19:24 See, here is my daughter, a virgin, and his
servant-wife:
I will send them out
for you to take them and do with them
whatever you will.
But do no such thing of shame to this man.
19:25 But the men would not give ear to him: so the man took
his
woman and sent her
out to them; and they took her by force,
using her for their
pleasure all night till the morning; and
when dawn came they
let her go.
19:26 Then at the dawn of day the woman came, and, falling
down
at the door of the
man's house where her master was, was
stretched there till
it was light.
19:27 In the morning her master got up, and opening the door
of
the house went out to
go on his way; and he saw his
servant-wife stretched
on the earth at the door of the house
with her hands on the
step.
19:28 And he said to her, Get up and let us be going; but
there
was no answer; so he
took her up and put her on the ass, and
went on his way and
came to his house.
19:29 And when he had come to his house, he got his knife,
and
took the woman,
cutting her up bone by bone into twelve parts,
which he sent through
all Israel.
19:30 And he gave orders to the men whom he sent, saying,
This
is what you are to
say to all the men of Israel, Has ever an
act like this been
done from the day when the children of
Israel came out of
Egypt to this day? Give thought to it,
turning it over in
your minds, and give your opinion of it.
20:1 Then all the children of Israel took up arms, and the
people came together
like one man, from Dan to Beer-sheba, and
the land of Gilead,
before the Lord at Mizpah.
20:2 And the chiefs of the people, out of all the tribes of
Israel, took their
places in the meeting of the people of God,
four hundred thousand
footmen armed with swords.
20:3 (Now the children of Benjamin had word that the
children of
Israel had gone up to
Mizpah.) And the children of Israel said,
Make clear how this
evil thing took place.
20:4 Then the Levite, the husband of the dead woman, said in
answer, I came to
Gibeah in the land of Benjamin, I and my
servant-wife, for the
purpose of stopping there for the night.
20:5 And the townsmen of Gibeah came together against me,
going
round the house on
all sides by night; it was their purpose to
put me to death, and
my servant-wife was violently used by them
and is dead.
20:6 So I took her, cutting her into parts which I sent
through
all the country of
the heritage of Israel: for they have done
an act of shame in
Israel.
20:7 Here you all are, you children of Israel; give now your
suggestions about
what is to be done.
20:8 Then all the people got up as one man and said, Not one
of
us will go to his
tent or go back to his house:
20:9 But this is what we will do to Gibeah: we will go up
against it by the
decision of the Lord;
20:10 And we will take ten men out of every hundred, through
all
the tribes of Israel,
a hundred out of every thousand, a
thousand out of every
ten thousand, to get food for the people,
so that they may give
to Gibeah of Benjamin the right
punishment for the
act of shame they have done in Israel.
20:11 So all the men of Israel were banded together against
the
town, united like one
man.
20:12 And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe
of
Benjamin saying, What
is this evil which has been done among
you?
20:13 Now give up those good-for-nothing persons in Gibeah
so
that we may put them
to death, clearing away the evil from
Israel. But the
children of Benjamin would not give ear to the
voice of their
brothers, the children of Israel.
20:14 And the children of Benjamin came together from all
their
towns to Gibeah, to
go to war with the children of Israel.
20:15 And the children of Benjamin who came that day from
the
towns were twenty-six
thousand men armed with swords, in
addition to the
people of Gibeah, numbering seven hundred of
the best
fighting-men,
20:16 Who were left-handed, able to send a stone at a hair
without error.
20:17 And the men of Israel, other than Benjamin, were four
hundred thousand in
number, all armed with swords; they were
all men of war.
20:18 And they got up and went up to Beth-el to get
directions
from God, and the
children of Israel said, Who is to be the
first to go up to the
fight against the children of Benjamin?
And the Lord said,
Judah is to go up first.
20:19 So the children of Israel got up in the morning and
put
themselves in
position against Gibeah.
20:20 And the men of Israel went out to war against Benjamin
(and the men of
Israel put their forces in fighting order
against them at
Gibeah).
20:21 Then the children of Benjamin came out from Gibeah,
cutting down
twenty-two thousand of the Israelites that day.
20:22 But the people, the men of Israel, taking heart again,
put
their forces in order
and took up the same position as on the
first day.
20:23 Now the children of Israel went up, weeping before the
Lord till evening,
requesting the Lord and saying, Am I to go
forward again to the
fight against the children of Benjamin my
brother? And the Lord
said, Go up against him.
20:24 So the children of Israel went forward against the
children of Benjamin
the second day.
20:25 And the second day Benjamin went out against them from
Gibeah, cutting down
eighteen thousand men of the children of
Israel, all
swordsmen.
20:26 Then all the children of Israel, and all the people,
went
up to Beth-el,
weeping and waiting there before the Lord, going
without food all day
till evening, and offering burned
offerings and
peace-offerings before the Lord.
20:27 And the children of Israel made request to the Lord,
(for
the ark of the
agreement of the Lord was there in those days,
20:28 And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron,
was in
his place before it,)
and said, Am I still to go on with the
fight against the
children of Benjamin my brother, or am I to
give it up? And the
Lord said, Go on; for tomorrow I will give
him into your hands.
20:29 So Israel put men secretly all round Gibeah to make a
surprise attack on
it.
20:30 And the children of Israel went up against the
children of
Benjamin on the third
day, and put themselves in fighting order
against Gibeah as
before.
20:31 And the children of Benjamin went out against the
people,
moving away from the
town; and as before, at their first
attack, they put to
death about thirty men of Israel on the
highways, of which
one goes up to Beth-el and the other to
Gibeah, and in the
open country.
20:32 And the children of Benjamin said, They are giving way
before us as at
first. But the children of Israel said, Let us
go in flight and get
them away from the town, into the
highways.
20:33 So all the men of Israel got up and put themselves in
fighting order at
Baal-tamar: and those who had been waiting
secretly to make a
surprise attack came rushing out of their
place on the west of
Geba.
20:34 And they came in front of Gibeah, ten thousand of the
best
men in all Israel,
and the fighting became more violent; but
the children of
Benjamin were not conscious that evil was
coming on them.
20:35 Then the Lord sent sudden fear on Benjamin before
Israel;
and that day the
children of Israel put to death twenty-five
thousand, one hundred
men of Benjamin, all of them swordsmen.
20:36 So the children of Benjamin saw that they were
overcome:
and the men of Israel
had given way before Benjamin, putting
their faith in the
watchers who were to make the surprise
attack on Gibeah.
20:37 And the watchers, rushing on Gibeah and overrunning
it,
put all the town to
the sword without mercy.
20:38 Now the sign fixed between the men of Israel and those
making the surprise
attack was that when they made a pillar of
smoke go up from the
town,
20:39 The men of Israel were to make a turn about in the
fight.
And Benjamin had
overcome and put to death about thirty of the
men of Israel, and
were saying, Certainly they are falling back
before us as in the
first fight.
20:40 Then the sign went up out of the town in the pillar of
smoke, and the
Benjamites, turning back, saw all the town going
up in smoke to
heaven.
20:41 And the men of Israel had made a turn about, and the
men
of Benjamin were
overcome with fear, for they saw that evil had
overtaken them.
20:42 So turning their backs on the men of Israel, they went
in
the direction of the
waste land; but the fight overtook them;
and those who came
out of the town were heading them off and
putting them to the
sword.
20:43 And crushing Benjamin down, they went after them,
driving
them from Nohah as
far as the east side of Gibeah.
20:44 Eighteen thousand men of Benjamin came to their death,
all
strong men of war.
20:45 And turning, they went in flight to the rock of Rimmon
in
the waste land: and
on the highways five thousand of them were
cut off by the men of
Israel, who, pushing on hard after them
to Geba, put to death
two thousand more.
20:46 So twenty-five thousand of the swordsmen of Benjamin
came
to their end that
day, all strong men of war.
20:47 But six hundred men, turning back, went in flight to
the
rock of Rimmon in the
waste land, and were living on the rock
of Rimmon for four
months.
20:48 And the men of Israel, turning again against the
children
of Benjamin, put to
the sword without mercy all the towns and
the cattle and
everything there was, burning every town which
came into their
hands.
21:1 Now the men of Israel had taken an oath in Mizpah,
saying,
Not one of us will
give his daughter as a wife to Benjamin.
21:2 And the people came to Beth-el, waiting there till
evening
before God, and gave
themselves up to bitter weeping.
21:3 And they said, O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this
fate
come on Israel, that
today one tribe has been cut off from
Israel?
21:4 Then on the day after, the people got up early and made
an
altar there, offering
burned offerings and peace-offerings.
21:5 And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all
the
tribes of Israel, who
did not come up to the Lord at the
meeting of all
Israel? For they had taken a great oath that
whoever did not come
up to Mizpah to the Lord was to be put to
death.
21:6 And the children of Israel were moved with pity for
Benjamin their brother,
saying, Today one tribe has been cut
off from Israel.
21:7 What are we to do about wives for those who are still
living? For we have
taken an oath by the Lord that we will not
give them our
daughters for wives.
21:8 And they said, Which one of the tribes of Israel did
not
come up to Mizpah to
the Lord? And it was seen that no one had
come from
Jabesh-gilead to the meeting.
21:9 For when the people were numbered, not one man of the
people of
Jabesh-gilead was present.
21:10 So they (the meeting) sent twelve thousand of the best
fighting-men, and
gave them orders, saying, Go and put the
people of
Jabesh-gilead to the sword without mercy, with their
women and their
little ones.
21:11 And this is what you are to do: every male, and every
woman who has had sex
relations with a man, you are to put to
the curse, but you
are to keep safe the virgins. And they did
so.
21:12 Now there were among the people of Jabesh-gilead four
hundred young virgins
who had never had sex relations with a
man; these they took
to their tents in Shiloh in the land of
Canaan.
21:13 And all the meeting sent to the men of Benjamin who
were
in the rock of
Rimmon, offering them peace.
21:14 Then Benjamin came back; and they gave them the women
whom
they had kept from
death among the women of Jabesh-gilead: but
still there were not
enough for them.
21:15 And the people were moved with pity for Benjamin,
because
the Lord had let his
wrath loose on the tribes of Israel.
21:16 Then the responsible men of the meeting said, What are
we
to do about wives for
the rest of them, seeing that the women
of Benjamin are dead?
21:17 And they said, How is the rest of Benjamin to be given
offspring so that one
tribe of Israel may not be put out of
existence,
21:18 Seeing that we may not give them our daughters as
wives?
For the children of
Israel had taken an oath, saying, Cursed is
he who gives a wife
to Benjamin.
21:19 And they said, See, every year there is a feast of the
Lord in Shiloh, which
is to the north of Beth-el, on the east
side of the highway
which goes up from Beth-el to Shechem, and
on the south of
Lebonah.
21:20 And they said to the men of Benjamin, Go into the
vine-gardens, waiting
there secretly,
21:21 And watching; and if the daughters of Shiloh come out
to
take part in the
dances, then come from the vine-gardens and
take a wife for every
one of you from among the daughters of
Shiloh, and go back
to the land of Benjamin.
21:22 And when their fathers or their brothers come and make
trouble, you are to
say to them, Give them to us as an act of
grace; for we did not
take them as wives for ourselves in war;
and if you yourselves
had given them to us you would have been
responsible for the
broken oath.
21:23 So the men of Benjamin did this, and got wives for
themselves for every
one of their number, taking them away by
force from the dance;
then they went back to their heritage,
building up their
towns and living in them.
21:24 Then the children of Israel went away from there,
every
man to his tribe and
his family, every man went back to his
heritage.
21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man
did
what seemed right to him.