¹¹ And the Lord sent Jerubbaal and Barak,^[a] and Jephthah, and Samson^[b] and rescued you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety.^(A)

³² Therefore on that day Gideon^[a] was called Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him,” because he pulled down his altar.^(A)

⁶ She sent and summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you, ‘Position yourself at Mount Tabor, taking ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun.^(A)

¹⁴ Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.”^(A)

¹³ So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel; the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.^(A)

Jephthah

11 Now Jephthah the Gileadite, the son of a prostitute, was a mighty warrior. Gilead was the father of Jephthah.^{(A) 2} Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah away, saying to him, “You shall not inherit anything in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.” ³ Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws gathered around Jephthah and went raiding with him.^(B)

⁴ After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel.^{(C) 5} And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob. ⁶ They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, so that we may fight with the Ammonites.” ⁷ But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Are you not the very ones who rejected me and drove me out of my father’s house? So why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?” ⁸ The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Nevertheless, we have now turned back to you, so that you may go with us and fight with the Ammonites and become head over us, over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”^{(D) 9} Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the Ammonites and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head.” ¹⁰ And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will be witness between us; we will surely do as you say.”^{(E) 11} So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them, and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.^(F)

¹² Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said, “What is there between you and me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?” ¹³ The king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel, on coming from Egypt, took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan; now, therefore, restore it peaceably.”^{(G) 14} Once again Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites ¹⁵ and said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites,^{(H) 16} but when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea^[a] and came to Kadesh.^{(I) 17} Israel then sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Let us pass through your land,’ but the king of Edom would not listen. They also sent to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained at Kadesh. ¹⁸ Then they journeyed through the wilderness, went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab, arrived on the east side of the land of Moab, and camped on the other side of the Arnon. They did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab.^{(J) 19} Israel then sent messengers to King Sihon of the Amorites, king of Heshbon, and Israel said to him, ‘Let us pass through your land to our country.’^{(K) 20} But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory, so Sihon gathered all his people together and encamped at Jahaz and fought with Israel.^{(L) 21} Then the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them, so Israel occupied all the land of the Amorites, who inhabited that country.^{(M) 22} They occupied all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan.^{(N) 23} So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has conquered the Amorites for the benefit of his people Israel. Do you intend to take their place? ²⁴ Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? And should we not be the ones to possess everything that the Lord our God has conquered for our benefit?^{(O) 25} Now are you any better than King Balak son of Zippor of Moab? Did he ever enter into conflict with Israel, or did he ever go to war with them?^{(P) 26} While Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aroer and its villages, and in all the towns that are along the Arnon, three hundred years, why did you not recover them within that time?^{(Q) 27} It is not I who have sinned against you, but you are the one who does me wrong by making war on me. Let the Lord, who is judge, decide today for the Israelites or for the Ammonites.”^{(R) 28} But the king of the Ammonites did not heed the message that Jephthah sent him.

Jephthah’s Vow

²⁹ Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites.^{(S) 30} And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, ³¹ then whatever^[b] comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” ³² So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand. ³³ He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.^(T)

³⁵ and they did not exhibit loyalty to the house of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good that he had done to Israel.

Death of Gideon

²⁹ Jerubbaal son of Joash went to live in his own house.^(A)

The Birth of Samson

13 The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.^(A)

² There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren, having borne no children.^{(B) 3} And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Although you are barren, having borne no children, you shall conceive and bear a son.^{(C) 4} Now be careful not to drink wine or strong drink or to eat anything unclean,^{(D) 5} for you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor is to come on his head, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth. It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”^{(E) 6} Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like that of an angel^[a] of God, most awe-inspiring; I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name,^{(F) 7} but he said to me, ‘You shall conceive and bear a son. So then, drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.’ ”

⁸ Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, “O my Lord, I pray, let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and teach us what we are to do concerning the boy who will be born.”^{(G) 9} God listened to Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field, but her husband Manoah was not with her. ¹⁰ So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” ¹¹ Manoah got up and followed his wife and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” ¹² Then Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the boy’s rule of life; what is he to do?” ¹³ The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Let the woman give heed to all that I said to her.^{(H) 14} She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine. She is not to drink wine or strong drink or eat any unclean thing. She is to observe everything that I commanded her.”^(I)

¹⁵ Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Allow us to detain you and prepare a kid for you.”^{(J) 16} The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat your food, but if you want to prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.)^(K)