Judges 3:13-30

The Voice

¹³ Eglon allied with the Ammonites and the Amalekites; they went to battle against Israel and defeated them, and they captured the city of palm trees. ¹⁴ The Israelites toiled for Eglon, king of Moab, for 18 years; ¹⁵ but when the people of Israel cried to the Eternal for relief, He raised up a left-handed liberator from among them: Ehud, son of Gera the Benjaminite.

The Israelites sent Ehud to bring tribute to Eglon, king of Moab. ¹⁶ Before he set out, Ehud made for himself a double-edged sword about 18 inches in length, and he fastened it onto his right thigh, hidden under his clothes.

¹⁷ Ehud brought the tribute to Eglon, king of Moab, who was a very fat man; ¹⁸ and when he was done with the presentation of the tribute to the king, he sent away those who carried it. ¹⁹ Ehud stopped on his homeward journey at the engraved idols near Gilgal and returned to speak with Eglon.

Eglon sent his attendants away; ²⁰ and Ehud came in to the king, who sat alone in a cool, private, upstairs room supported by beams.

As the king got up from his throne, ²¹ Ehud reached beneath his robes with his left hand, took the sword strapped to his right thigh, and thrust it deep into Eglon’s belly, ²² so deep, in fact, that the hilt followed the blade, and he did not remove the sword because the fat closed over the blade, and the contents of Eglon’s intestines spilled out. ²³ So Ehud locked the doors of the roof area himself and exited through the porch. ²⁴ After he had escaped, eventually the servants came to check on their master. When they saw that the doors to the upstairs room were locked, they assumed Eglon was relieving himself in the upstairs chamber. ²⁵ They stood around waiting until their embarrassment grew too great. When Eglon didn’t open the doors, at last, they opened the doors with the key, and there was their master, lying dead on the floor.

²⁶ Ehud took advantage of the delay. He passed the idols of Gilgal and escaped to Seirah. ²⁷ Reaching safety, he sounded the trumpet in the hill country of the tribe of Ephraim, and the Israelites followed him back down the mountain.

So they followed him, and together they captured the crossings of the river Jordan into Moab, not allowing anyone to pass. ²⁹ At that time, they killed an army of 10,000 Moabites, all of them strong and well-equipped warriors. No one escaped.

³⁰ So Israel defeated Moab on that day, and this region experienced rest from war for 80 years.