¹⁷ Yet they did not listen even to their judges, for they lusted after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their ancestors had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord; they did not follow their example.^(A)

¹² and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them and bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger.^(A)

¹⁹ Now there was no smith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “The Hebrews must not make swords or spears for themselves,”^{(A) 20} so all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen their plowshares, mattocks, axes, or sickles.^{[a] 21} The charge was two-thirds of a shekel^[b] for the plowshares and for the mattocks and one-third of a shekel for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads.^{[c] 22} So on the day of the battle neither sword nor spear was to be found in the possession of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan, but Saul and his son Jonathan had them.^(B)

³ Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron and had oppressed the Israelites cruelly twenty years.^(A)