Judges 1-6

Judges 1

¹Now 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?

²And the Lord said, Judah is to go up: see, I have given the land into his hands.

³Then 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.

⁴And Judah went up; and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands; and they overcame ten thousand of them in Bezek.

⁵And they came across Adoni-zedek, and made war on him; and they overcame the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

⁶But Adoni-zedek went in flight; and they went after him and overtook him, and had his thumbs and his great toes cut off.

⁷And 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.

⁸Then 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.

⁹After 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.

¹⁰And 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.

¹¹And from there he went up against the people of Debir. (Now the name of Debir in earlier times was Kiriath-sepher.)

¹²And Caleb said, I will give Achsah, my daughter, as wife to the man who overcomes Kiriath-sepher and takes it.

¹³And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah for his wife.

¹⁴Now 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?

¹⁵And 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.

¹⁶Now 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;

¹⁷And 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.

¹⁸Then Judah took Gaza and its limit, and Ashkelon and its limit, and Ekron and its limit.

¹⁹And 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.

²⁰And 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.

²¹And 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.

²²And the family of Joseph went up against Beth-el, and the Lord was with them.

²³So they sent men to make a search round Beth-el. (Now the name of the town in earlier times was Luz.)

²⁴And 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.

²⁵So 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.

²⁶And he went into the land of the Hittites, building a town there and naming it Luz: which is its name to this day.

²⁷And 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.

²⁸And whenever Israel became strong, they put the Canaanites to forced work, without driving them out completely.

²⁹And Ephraim did not make the Canaanites who were living in Gezer go out; but the Canaanites went on living in Gezer among them.

³⁰Zebulun 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.

³¹And 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;

³²But the Asherites went on living among the Canaanites, the people of the land, without driving them out.

³³Naphtali 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.

³⁴And the children of Dan were forced into the hill-country by the Amorites, who would not let them come down into the valley;

³⁵For 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.

³⁶And the limit of the Edomites went from the slope of Akrabbim from Sela and up.

Judges 2

¹Now 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:

²And 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?

³And 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.

⁴Now 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.

⁵And they gave that place the name of Bochim, and made offerings there to the Lord.

⁶And Joshua let the people go away, and the children of Israel went, every man to his heritage, to take the land for themselves.

⁷And 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.

⁸And death came to Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, he being a hundred and ten years old.

⁹And 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.

¹⁰And 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.

¹¹And the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord and became servants to the Baals;

¹²And 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.

¹³And they gave up the Lord, and became the servants of Baal and the Astartes.

¹⁴And 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.

¹⁵Wherever 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.

¹⁶Then the Lord gave them judges, as their saviours from the hands of those who were cruel to them.

¹⁷But 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.

¹⁸And 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.

¹⁹But 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.

²⁰And 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;

²¹From 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;

²²In 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.

²³So 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.

Judges 3

¹Now 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;

²Only 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;

³The 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:

⁴For 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.

⁵Now the children of Israel were living among the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites:

⁶And they took as wives the daughters of these nations and gave their daughters to their sons, and became servants to their gods.

⁷And 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.

⁸So 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.

⁹And when the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord, he gave them a saviour, Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother.

¹⁰And 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.

¹¹Then for forty years the land had peace, till the death of Othniel, the son of Kenaz.

¹²Then 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.

¹³And Eglon got together the people of Ammon and Amalek, and they went and overcame Israel and took the town of palm-trees.

¹⁴And the children of Israel were servants to Eglon, king of Moab, for eighteen years.

¹⁵Then 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.

¹⁶So Ehud made himself a two-edged sword, a cubit long, which he put on at his right side under his robe.

¹⁷And he took the offering to Eglon, king of Moab, who was a very fat man.

¹⁸And after giving the offering, he sent away the people who had come with the offering.

¹⁹But 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.

²⁰Then 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.

²¹And Ehud put out his left hand, and took the sword from his right side, and sent it into his stomach;

²²And 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 ...

²³Then Ehud went out into the covered way, shutting the doors of the summer-house on him and locking them.

²⁴Now 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.

²⁵And 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.

²⁶But Ehud had got away while they were waiting and had gone past the stone images and got away to Seirah.

²⁷And 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.

²⁸And 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.

²⁹At 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.

³⁰So Moab was broken that day under the hand of Israel. And for eighty years the land had peace.

³¹And 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.

Judges 4

¹And the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes of the Lord when Ehud was dead.

²And 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.

³Then 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.

⁴Now Deborah, a woman prophet, the wife of Lapidoth, was judge of Israel at that time.

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.)

⁶And 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?

⁷And 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.

⁸And 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.

⁹And 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.

¹⁰Then Barak sent for Zebulun and Naphtali to come to Kedesh; and ten thousand men went up after him, and Deborah went up with him.

¹¹Now 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.

¹²And word was given to Sisera that Barak, the son of Abinoam, had gone up to Mount Tabor.

¹³So 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.

¹⁴Then 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.

¹⁵And 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.

¹⁶But 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.

¹⁷But 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.

¹⁸And 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.

¹⁹Then 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.

²⁰And 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.

²¹Then 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.

²²Then 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.

²³So that day God overcame Jabin, king of Canaan, before the children of Israel.

²⁴And the power of the children of Israel went on increasing against Jabin, king of Canaan, till he was cut off.

Judges 5

¹At that time Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam, made this song, saying:

²Because of the flowing hair of the fighters in Israel, because the people gave themselves freely, give praise to the Lord.

³Give 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.

⁴Lord, 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.

⁵The mountains were shaking before the Lord, before the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁶In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were not used, and travellers went by side roads.

⁷Country towns were no more in Israel, …were no more, till you, Deborah, came up, till you came up as a mother in Israel.

⁸They 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?

⁹Come, you rulers of Israel, you who gave yourselves freely among the people: give praise to the Lord.

¹⁰Let them give thought to it, who go on white asses, and those who are walking on the road.

¹¹Give 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.

¹²Awake! awake! Deborah: awake! awake! give a song: Up! Barak, and take prisoner those who took you prisoner, O son of Abinoam.

¹³Then the chiefs went down to the doors; the Lord's people went down among the strong ones.

¹⁴Out 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.

¹⁵Your 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.

¹⁶Why did you keep quiet among the sheep, hearing nothing but the watchers piping to the flocks?

¹⁷Gilead 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.

¹⁸It was the people of Zebulun who put their lives in danger, even to death, with Naphtali on the high places of the field.

¹⁹The 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.

²⁰The stars from heaven were fighting; from their highways they were fighting against Sisera.

²¹The river Kishon took them violently away, stopping their flight, the river Kishon. Give praise, O my soul, to the strength of the Lord!

²²Then loudly the feet of the horses were sounding with the stamping, the stamping of their war-horses.

²³A 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.

²⁴Blessings be on Jael, more than on all women! Blessings greater than on any in the tents!

²⁵His request was for water, she gave him milk; she put butter before him on a fair plate.

²⁶She 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.

²⁷Bent 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.

²⁸Looking 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?

²⁹Her wise women gave answer to her, yes, she made answer again to herself,

³⁰Are 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?

³¹So 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.

Judges 6

¹And 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.

²And 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.

³And whenever Israel's grain was planted, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east came up against them;

⁴And 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.

⁵For 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.

⁶And Israel was in great need because of Midian; and the cry of the children of Israel went up to the Lord.

⁷And when the cry of the children of Israel, because of Midian, came before the Lord,

⁸The 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;

⁹And 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;

¹⁰And 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.

¹¹Now 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.

¹²And the angel of the Lord came before his eyes, and said to him, The Lord is with you, O man of war.

¹³Then 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.

¹⁴And the Lord, turning to him, said, Go in the strength you have and be Israel's saviour from Midian: have I not sent you?

¹⁵And 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.

¹⁶Then the Lord said to him, Truly, I will be with you, and you will overcome the Midianites as if they were one man.

¹⁷So 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.

¹⁸Do 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.

¹⁹Then 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.

²⁰And 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.

²¹Then 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.

²²Then 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.

²³But the Lord said to him, Peace be with you; have no fear: you are in no danger of death.

²⁴Then 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.

²⁵The 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,

²⁶Make 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.

²⁷Then 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.

²⁸And 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.

²⁹And 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.

³⁰Then 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.

³¹But 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.

³²So 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.

³³Then 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.

³⁴But the spirit of the Lord came on Gideon; and at the sound of his horn all Abiezer came together after him.

³⁵And 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.

³⁶Then Gideon said to God, If you are going to give Israel salvation by my hand, as you have said,

³⁷See, 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.

³⁸And 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.

³⁹Then 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.

⁴⁰And that night God did so; for the wool was dry, and there was dew on all the earth round it.