The Book of Judges

001	And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it; so, he gave him his daughter Achsah as wife.	1:13
002	Then the Angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you.	2:1
003	Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them.	2:16
004	o that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the Lord, to walk in them as their fathers kept them, or not.” Therefore, the Lord left those nations, without driving them out immediately; nor did He deliver them into the hand of Joshua.	2:22-23
005	When the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the children of Israel, who delivered them: Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.	3:9
006	But when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for them: Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man. By him the children of Israel sent tribute to Eglon king of Moab.	3:15
007	Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.	4:4
008	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!”	4:8
009	However, Sisera had fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.	4:17
010	Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went down into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So, he died.	4:21
011	Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”	6:13
012	So, Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it The-Lord-Is-Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.	6:24
013	Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more: Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew.”	6:39
014	nor did they show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal (Gideon) in accordance with the good he had done for Israel.	8:35
015	Then he (Abimelech) went to his father’s house at Ophrah and killed his brothers, the seventy sons of Jerubbaal, on one stone. But Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, because he hid himself.	9:5
016	After Abimelech had reigned over Israel three years, God sent a spirit of ill will between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech,	9:22-23
017	Thus, God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he had done to his father by killing his seventy brothers. And all the evil of the men of Shechem God returned on their own heads, and on them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.	9:56-57
018	After Abimelech there arose to save Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in the mountains of Ephraim.	10:1
019	After him arose Jair, a Gileadite; and he judged Israel twenty-two years.	10:3
020	And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, “We have sinned against You, because we have both forsaken our God and served the Baals!”	10:10
021	Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, but he was the son of a harlot; and Gilead begot Jephthah.	11:1
022	And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, Then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.”	11:30-31
023	And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man. And it became a custom in Israel That the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.	11:39-40
024	Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children.	13:2
025	And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.	13:2
026	Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean.	13:4
027	For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”	13:5
028	For the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’ “	13:7
029	So, the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.	13:24
030	So, Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.	14:5-6
031	But if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.” And they said to him, “Pose your riddle, that we may hear it.”  So, he said to them: “Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet.” Now for three days they could not explain the riddle.	14:13-14
032	So, the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down: “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?” And he said to them: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!”	14:18
033	Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes; and he took torches, turned the foxes’ tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.  When he had set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.	15:4-5
034	Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they answered, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” So, the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire.	15:6
035	Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What is this you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”	15:11
036	When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands.	15:14
037	He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.	15:15
038	And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.	15:20
039	And Samson lay low till midnight; then he arose at midnight, took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two gateposts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.	16:3
040	that he told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”	16:17
041	And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” So, he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.	16:20
042	Then Samson called to the Lord, saying, “O Lord God, remember me, I pray! Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!”	16:28
043	Then Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So, the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life.	16:30
044	And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite staying in the remote mountains of Ephraim. He took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.	19:1
045	But his concubine played the harlot against him, and went away from him to her father’s house at Bethlehem in Judah, and was there four whole months.	19:2
046	Then her husband arose and went after her, to speak kindly to her and bring her back, having his servant and a couple of donkeys with him. So, she brought him into her father’s house; and when the father of the young woman saw him, he was glad to meet him.	19:3
047	Then he arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart, but the young woman’s father said, “Please refresh your heart.” So they delayed until afternoon; and both of them ate.  And when the man stood to depart–he and his concubine and his servant–his father-in-law, the young woman’s father, said to him, “Look, the day is now drawing toward evening; please spend the night. See, the day is coming to an end; lodge here, that your heart may be merry. Tomorrow go your way early, so that you may get home.” However, the man was not willing to spend that night; so he rose and departed, and came to opposite Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). With him were the two saddled donkeys; his concubine was also with him.  They were near Jebus, and the day was far spent; and the servant said to his master, “Come, please, and let us turn aside into this city of the Jebusites and lodge in it.”  But his master said to him, “We will not turn aside here into a city of foreigners, who are not of the children of Israel; we will go on to Gibeah.” So he said to his servant, “Come, let us draw near to one of these places, and spend the night in Gibeah or in Ramah.”	19:8-13
048	And the old man said, “Peace be with you! However, let all your needs be my responsibility; only do not spend the night in the open square.”	19:20
049	Now as they were enjoying themselves, suddenly certain men of the city, perverted men, surrounded the house and beat on the door. They spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, “Bring out the man who came to your house, that we may know him carnally!”  But the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, “No, my brethren! I beg you, do not act so wickedly! Seeing this man has come into my house, do not commit this outrage.  Look, here is my virgin daughter and the man’s concubine; let me bring them out now. Humble them, and do with them as you please; but to this man do not do such a vile thing!”  But the men would not heed him. So, the man took his concubine and brought her out to them. And they knew her and abused her all night until morning; and when the day began to break, they let her go.	19:22-25
050	And he said to her, “Get up and let us be going.” But there was no answer. So, the man lifted her onto the donkey; and the man got up and went to his place.	19:28
051	When he entered his house he took a knife, laid hold of his concubine, and divided her into twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.	19:29
052	Then the children of Benjamin came out of Gibeah, and on that day cut down to the ground twenty-two thousand men of the Israelites.	20:21
053	The Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel. And the children of Israel destroyed that day twenty-five thousand one hundred Benjamite’s; all these drew the sword.	20:35
054	Now the men of Israel had sworn an oath at Mizpah, saying, “None of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife.”	21:1
055	And the children of Israel grieved for Benjamin their brother, and said, “One tribe is cut off from Israel today.	21:6
056	However, we cannot give them wives from our daughters, for the children of Israel have sworn an oath, saying, ‘Cursed be the one who gives a wife to Benjamin.’ “	21:18
057	And the children of Benjamin did so; they took enough wives for their number from those who danced, whom they caught. Then they went and returned to their inheritance, and they rebuilt the cities and dwelt in them.	21:23