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16 A king is not saved by his great army;
    a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.(A)

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for not by their own sword did they win the land,
    nor did their own arm give them victory,
but your right hand, and your arm,
    and the light of your countenance,
    for you delighted in them.(A)

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23 For the Ammonites and Moab attacked the inhabitants of Mount Seir, destroying them utterly, and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another.(A)

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Then Jonathan said, “Now we will cross over to those men and will show ourselves to them. If they say to us, ‘Wait until we come to you,’ then we will stand still in our place, and we will not go up to them. 10 But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ then we will go up, for the Lord has given them into our hand. That will be the sign for us.”(A) 11 So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines, and the Philistines said, “Look, Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden themselves.”(B) 12 The men of the garrison hailed Jonathan and his armor-bearer, saying, “Come up to us, and we will show you something.” Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Come up after me, for the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel.”(C) 13 Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer following after him. The Philistines[a] fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer coming after him killed them. 14 In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed about twenty men within an area about half a furrow long in an acre[b] of land. 15 There was a panic in the camp, in the field, and among all the people; the garrison and even the raiders trembled; the earth quaked; and it became a very great panic.(D)

16 Saul’s lookouts in Gibeah of Benjamin were watching as the multitude was surging back and forth.[c](E)

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Footnotes

  1. 14.13 Heb They
  2. 14.14 Heb yoke
  3. 14.16 Gk: Heb they went and there

23 Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom; do not let the mighty boast in their might; do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth;(A)

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For not in my bow do I trust,
    nor can my sword save me.
But you have saved us from our foes
    and have put to confusion those who hate us.(A)

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21 And the Lord sent an angel who cut off all the mighty warriors and commanders and officers in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned in disgrace to his own land. When he came into the house of his god, some of his own sons struck him down there with the sword.(A)

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With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles.” The people were encouraged by the words of King Hezekiah of Judah.(A)

After this, while King Sennacherib of Assyria was at Lachish with all his forces, he sent his servants to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah of Judah and to all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem, saying,

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12 O our God, will you not execute judgment upon them? For we are powerless against this great multitude that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”(A)

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Ethiopian Invasion Repulsed

Zerah the Cushite came out against them with an army of a million men and three hundred chariots and came as far as Mareshah.(A) 10 Asa went out to meet him, and they drew up their lines of battle in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. 11 Asa cried to the Lord his God, “O Lord, there is no difference for you between helping the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God; let no mortal prevail against you.”(B) 12 So the Lord defeated the Cushites before Asa and before Judah, and the Cushites fled.(C) 13 Asa and the army with him pursued them as far as Gerar, and the Cushites fell until no one remained alive, for they were broken before the Lord and his army. The people of Judah[a] carried away a great quantity of spoil.(D)

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Footnotes

  1. 14.13 Heb They

27 After the Israelites had been mustered and provisioned, they went out to engage them; the people of Israel encamped opposite them like two little flocks of goats, while the Arameans filled the country. 28 A man of God approached and said to the king of Israel, “Thus says the Lord: Because the Arameans have said, ‘The Lord is a god of the hills, but he is not a god of the valleys,’ therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”(A) 29 They encamped opposite one another seven days. Then on the seventh day the battle began; the Israelites killed one hundred thousand Aramean foot soldiers in one day.

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10 Ben-hadad sent to him and said, “The gods do so to me and more also, if the dust of Samaria will provide a handful for each of the people who follow me.”(A)

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16 Ishbi-benob, one of the descendants of the giants, whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of bronze and who was fitted out with new weapons,[a] said he would kill David. 17 But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to his aid and attacked the Philistine and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, “You shall not go out with us to battle any longer, so that you do not quench the lamp of Israel.”(A)

18 After this a battle took place with the Philistines at Gob; then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was one of the descendants of the giants.(B) 19 Then there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.(C) 20 There was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great size who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; he, too, was descended from the giants.[b] 21 When he taunted Israel, Jonathan son of David’s brother Shimei killed him. 22 These four were descended from the giants[c] in Gath; they fell by the hands of David and his servants.

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Footnotes

  1. 21.16 Heb was belted anew
  2. 21.20 Gk: Heb from the Raphah
  3. 21.22 Gk: Heb from the Raphah

45 But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.(A) 46 This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head, and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel(B) 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”(C)

48 When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. 49 David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.

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And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was four[a] cubits and a span.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 17.4 Q ms Gk: MT six

12 The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the east lay along the valley as thick as locusts, and their camels were without number, countless as the sand on the seashore.(A) 13 When Gideon arrived, there was a man telling a dream to his comrade, and he said, “I had a dream, and in it a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell; it turned upside down, and the tent collapsed.” 14 And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, a man of Israel; into his hand God has given Midian and all the army.”(B)

15 When Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped, and he returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Get up, for the Lord has given the army of Midian into your hand.”(C) 16 After he divided the three hundred men into three companies and put trumpets into the hands of all of them and empty jars, with torches inside the jars, 17 he said to them, “Look at me, and do the same; when I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. 18 When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets around the whole camp and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’ ”(D)

19 So Gideon and the hundred who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set the watch, and they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands. 20 So the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars, holding in their left hands the torches and in their right hands the trumpets to blow, and they cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”(E) 21 Every man stood in his place all around the camp, and all the men in camp ran; they cried out and fled.(F) 22 When they blew the three hundred trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow and against all the army, and the army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah,[a] as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath.(G) 23 And the men of Israel were called out from Naphtali and from Asher and from all Manasseh, and they pursued after the Midianites.(H)

24 Then Gideon sent messengers throughout all the hill country of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites and seize the waters against them, as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan.” So all the men of Ephraim were called out, and they seized the waters as far as Beth-barah and the Jordan.(I) 25 They captured the two captains of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the winepress of Zeeb, as they pursued the Midianites. They brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon beyond the Jordan.(J)

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Footnotes

  1. 7.22 Another reading is Zeredah

The Lord said to Gideon, “The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, ‘My own hand has delivered me.’(A)

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12 So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; it may be that the Lord will be with me, and I will drive them out, as the Lord said.”(A)

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They came out, with all their troops, a great army, in number like the sand on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots.(A) All these kings joined their forces and came and camped together at the waters of Merom, to fight with Israel.

And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will hand over all of them, slain, to Israel; you shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.”(B) So Joshua came suddenly upon them with all his fighting force, by the waters of Merom, and fell upon them. And the Lord handed them over to Israel, who attacked them and chased them as far as Great Sidon and Misrephoth-maim and eastward as far as the valley of Mizpeh. They struck them down until they had left no one remaining.(C)

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28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained.(A)

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17 Then I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them, and so I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his chariot drivers.(A) 18 Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gained glory for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his chariot drivers.”(B)

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