Judges 1

²¹He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who will seek counsel for him before the Lord by the judgment of the Urim. At his command, he and all the Israelites with him—the entire congregation—will go out and come in.”

¹⁸The Israelites set out, went up to Bethel, and inquired of God, “Who of us shall go up first to fight against the Benjamites?” “Judah will be first,” the Lord replied.

²⁸and Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, served before it.) The Israelites asked, “Should we again go out to battle against our brothers the Benjamites, or should we stop?” The Lord answered, “Fight, for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand.”

⁹When David learned that Saul was plotting evil against him, he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod.”

¹⁰And David said, “O Lord, God of Israel, Your servant has heard that Saul intends to come to Keilah and destroy the city on my account.

³⁰And place the Urim and Thummim in the breastpiece of judgment, so that they will also be over Aaron’s heart whenever he comes before the Lord. Aaron will continually carry the judgment of the sons of Israel over his heart before the Lord.

²⁷At that time Manasseh failed to drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, Megiddo, and their villages; for the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that land.

⁵Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

¹⁴For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, a tribe as to which Moses said nothing about priests.

⁸Judah, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the necks of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down to you.

⁹Judah is a young lion—my son, you return from the prey. Like a lion he crouches and lies down; like a lioness, who dares to rouse him?

³On the east side, toward the sunrise, the divisions of Judah are to camp under their standard: The leader of the Judahites is Nahshon son of Amminadab,

⁶⁸But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.

⁶⁹He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.

¹²On the first day Nahshon son of Amminadab from the tribe of Judah drew near with his offering.

¹The second lot came out for the clans of the tribe of Simeon: Their inheritance lay within the territory of Judah

¹⁷Then the men of Judah went with their brothers the Simeonites, attacked the Canaanites living in Zephath, and devoted the city to destruction. So it was called Hormah.

¹¹“If the Arameans are too strong for me,” said Joab, “then you will come to my rescue. And if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come to your rescue.

³³Again she conceived and gave birth to a son, and she said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has given me this son as well.” So she named him Simeon.

⁸And when Saul numbered them at Bezek, there were 300,000 Israelites and 30,000 men of Judah.

⁶Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for by this time tomorrow I will deliver all of them slain before Israel. You are to hamstring their horses and burn up their chariots.”

⁷So by the waters of Merom, Joshua and his whole army came upon them suddenly and attacked them,

⁶Jonathan said to the young man bearing his armor, “Come, let us cross over to the outpost of these uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will work on our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.”

⁴⁶This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand. This day I will strike you down, cut off your head, and give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the creatures of the earth. Then the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

⁴⁷And all those assembled here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give all of you into our hands.”

³But understand that today the Lord your God goes across ahead of you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them and subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them swiftly, as the Lord has promised you.

²and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.

¹⁰“If anyone is destined for captivity, into captivity he will go; if anyone is to die by the sword, by the sword he must be killed.” Here is a call for the perseverance and faith of the saints.

³³But Samuel declared: “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord at Gilgal.

¹³For judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

³⁷Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

³⁸Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”

¹⁹If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him:

²⁰fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just as he injured the other person, the same must be inflicted on him.

²³But if a serious injury results, then you must require a life for a life—

²⁴eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

⁶³But the descendants of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. So to this day the Jebusites live there among the descendants of Judah.

²¹The Benjamites, however, failed to drive out the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. So to this day the Jebusites live there among the Benjamites.

³⁶Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron and fought against it.

¹³According to the Lord’s command to him, Joshua gave Caleb son of Jephunneh a portion among the sons of Judah—Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.)

¹⁴And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak—the descendants of Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak.

²¹At that time Joshua proceeded to eliminate the Anakim from the hill country of Hebron, Debir, and Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah and of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction, along with their cities.

¹⁵(Hebron used to be called Kiriath-arba, after Arba, the greatest man among the Anakim.) Then the land had rest from war.

²²They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, dwelled. It had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.

²³This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the wealthy man in his riches.

²⁰Just as Moses had promised, Judah gave Hebron to Caleb, who drove out the descendants of the three sons of Anak.

³³We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak that come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own sight, and we must have seemed the same to them!”

¹¹I saw something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither is the bread to the wise, nor the wealth to the intelligent, nor the favor to the skillful. For time and chance happen to all.

¹⁵From there he marched against the inhabitants of Debir (formerly known as Kiriath-sepher).

³⁸Finally Joshua and all Israel with him turned toward Debir and fought against it.

³⁹And they captured Debir, its king, and all its villages. They put them to the sword and devoted to destruction everyone in the city, leaving no survivors. Joshua did to Debir and its king as he had done to Hebron and as he had done to Libnah and its king.

¹⁶And Caleb said, “To the man who strikes down Kiriath-sepher and captures it, I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage.”

¹⁷So Othniel son of Caleb’s brother Kenaz captured the city, and Caleb gave his daughter Acsah to him in marriage.

²⁵Now the men of Israel had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out to defy Israel? To the man who kills him the king will give great riches. And he will give him his daughter in marriage and exempt his father’s house from taxation in Israel.”

²³But when Saul’s servants relayed these words to David, he replied, “Does it seem trivial in your sight to be the son-in-law of the king? I am a poor man and lightly esteemed.”

⁹But when the Israelites cried out to the Lord, He raised up Othniel son of Caleb’s younger brother Kenaz as a deliverer to save them.

¹⁸One day Acsah came to Othniel and urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What do you desire?”

¹⁹“Give me a blessing,” she answered. “Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me springs of water as well.” So Caleb gave her both the upper and lower springs.

⁷For land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is tended receives the blessing of God.

⁹Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

¹¹Please accept my gift that was brought to you, because God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” So Jacob pressed him until he accepted.

⁵So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you beforehand and make arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. This way, your gift will be prepared generously and not begrudgingly.

²⁷Now let this gift your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow you.

¹⁸Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys

²⁹Then Moses said to Hobab, the son of Moses’ father-in-law Reuel the Midianite, “We are setting out for the place of which the Lord said: ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us, and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel.”

³⁰“I will not go,” Hobab replied. “Instead, I am going back to my own land and my own people.”

¹¹Now Heber the Kenite had moved away from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent by the great tree of Zaanannim, which was near Kedesh.

⁶And he warned the Kenites, “Since you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt, go on and get away from the Amalekites. Otherwise I will sweep you away with them.” So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.

¹When the Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming along the road to Atharim, he attacked Israel and captured some prisoners.

³the Negev, and the region from the Valley of Jericho (the City of Palms) all the way to Zoar.

¹³After enlisting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join forces with him, Eglon attacked and defeated Israel, taking possession of the City of Palms.

³And the Lord heard Israel’s plea and delivered up the Canaanites. Israel devoted them and their cities to destruction; so they named the place Hormah.

¹⁰So Asa marched out against him and lined up in battle formation in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah.

³Then the men of Judah said to their brothers the Simeonites, “Come up with us to our allotted territory, and let us fight against the Canaanites. And we likewise will go with you to your territory.” So the Simeonites went with them.

⁴⁵Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that part of the hill country came down, attacked them, and routed them all the way to Hormah.

⁴Eltolad, Bethul, Hormah,

²²No Anakim were left in the land of the Israelites; only in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod did any survive.

³the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived in the mountains of Lebanon from Mount Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath.

¹⁷As a guilt offering to the Lord, the Philistines had sent back one gold tumor for each city: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.

³from the Shihor east of Egypt to the territory of Ekron on the north (considered to be Canaanite territory)—that of the five Philistine rulers of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron, as well as that of the Avvites;

⁴⁵Ekron, with its towns and villages;

⁴⁶from Ekron to the sea, all the cities near Ashdod, along with their villages;

³¹And I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the Euphrates. For I will deliver the inhabitants into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

¹⁰Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

¹²With God we will perform with valor, and He will trample our enemies.

²“Judah shall go up,” answered the Lord. “Indeed, I have delivered the land into their hands.”

¹³I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

¹⁹Afterward the disciples came to Jesus privately and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

²⁰“Because you have so little faith,” He answered. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

³¹What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

¹⁰Judah also marched against the Canaanites who were living in Hebron (formerly known as Kiriath-arba), and they struck down Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai.

³⁶except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land on which he has set foot, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.”

¹³According to the Lord’s command to him, Joshua gave Caleb son of Jephunneh a portion among the sons of Judah—Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.)

¹⁴And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak—the descendants of Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak.

²⁴But because My servant Caleb has a different spirit and has followed Me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he has entered, and his descendants will inherit it.

¹¹They gave them Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), with its surrounding pasturelands, in the hill country of Judah. (Arba was the father of Anak.)

¹²But they had given the fields and villages around the city to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his possession.

⁹On that day Moses swore to me, saying, ‘Surely the land on which you have set foot will be an inheritance to you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’

¹⁰Now behold, as the Lord promised, He has kept me alive these forty-five years since He spoke this word to Moses, while Israel wandered in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old,

⁶³But the descendants of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. So to this day the Jebusites live there among the descendants of Judah.

⁶Now the king and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebusites who inhabited the land. The Jebusites said to David: “You will never get in here. Even the blind and lame can repel you.” For they thought, “David cannot get in here.”

⁷Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion (that is, the City of David).

⁸Then the men of Judah fought against Jerusalem and captured it. They put the city to the sword and set it on fire.

¹⁰But the man was unwilling to spend the night. He got up and departed, and arrived opposite Jebus (that is, Jerusalem), with his two saddled donkeys and his concubine.

¹¹When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Please, let us stop at this Jebusite city and spend the night here.”

¹¹The first lot came up for the clans of the tribe of Benjamin. Their allotted territory lay between the tribes of Judah and Joseph:

¹²On the north side their border began at the Jordan, went up past the northern slope of Jericho, headed west through the hill country, and came out at the wilderness of Beth-aven.

¹⁹The Lord was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the plains because they had chariots of iron.

²⁹And along the borders of Manasseh were Beth-shean, Taanach, Megiddo, and Dor, together with their villages. The descendants of Joseph son of Israel lived in these towns.

¹The allotment for the descendants of Joseph extended from the Jordan at Jericho to the waters of Jericho on the east, through the wilderness that goes up from Jericho into the hill country of Bethel.

²It went on from Bethel (that is, Luz) and proceeded to the border of the Archites in Ataroth.

²⁴Yet he steadied his bow, and his strong arms were tempered by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, in the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,

⁴The descendants of Joseph became two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. And no portion of the land was given to the Levites, except for cities in which to live, along with pasturelands for their flocks and herds.

¹⁰from the sons of Joseph: from Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud, and from Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur;

¹⁹and he called that place Bethel, though previously the city had been named Luz.

³Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there He blessed me

⁶So Jacob and everyone with him arrived in Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan.

²Meanwhile, Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven to the east of Bethel, and told them, “Go up and spy out the land.” So the men went up and spied out Ai.

²So the Danites sent out five men from their clans, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. “Go and explore the land,” they told them. The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night.

¹Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, inspect the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

¹⁵“Will you lead me to these raiders?” David asked. And the man replied, “Swear to me by God that you will not kill me or deliver me into the hand of my master, and I will lead you to them.”

¹²Now therefore, please swear to me by the Lord that you will indeed show kindness to my family, because I showed kindness to you. Give me a sure sign

¹³that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will deliver us from death.”

²²Meanwhile, Joshua told the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the house of the prostitute and bring out the woman and all who are with her, just as you promised her.”

²³So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel.

⁶For the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots, horses, and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel must have hired the kings of the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us.”

¹⁷A chariot could be imported from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. Likewise, they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Aram.

³⁴They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord had commanded them,

³⁵but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.

¹⁰Cursed is the one who is remiss in doing the work of the Lord, and cursed is he who withholds his sword from bloodshed.

¹¹Within Issachar and Asher, Manasseh was assigned Beth-shean, Ibleam, Dor (that is, Naphath), Endor, Taanach, and Megiddo, each with their surrounding settlements.

¹²But the descendants of Manasseh were unable to occupy these cities, because the Canaanites were determined to stay in this land.

⁹Saul and his troops spared Agag, along with the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs, and the best of everything else. They were unwilling to devote them to destruction, but they devoted to destruction all that was despised and worthless.

¹After the death of Joshua, the Israelites inquired of the Lord, “Who will be the first to go up and fight for us against the Canaanites?”

¹⁹Kings came and fought; then the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo, but they took no plunder of silver.

¹⁰But they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer. So the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites to this day, but they are forced laborers.

¹⁶Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

¹⁵It also included Kattath, Nahalal, Shimron, Idalah, and Bethlehem. There were twelve cities, along with their villages.

²⁴The fifth lot came out for the clans of the tribe of Asher:

²⁵Their territory included Helkath, Hali, Beten, Achshaph,

³⁴They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord had commanded them,

³⁵but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.

³²The sixth lot came out for the clans of the tribe of Naphtali:

³³Their border started at Heleph and the great tree of Zaanannim, passing Adami-nekeb and Jabneel as far as Lakkum and ending at the Jordan.

²⁴So the Lord has repaid me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.

³⁰Zebulun failed to drive out the inhabitants of Kitron and Nahalol; so the Canaanites lived among them and served as forced laborers.

³⁵And the Amorites were determined to dwell in Mount Heres, Aijalon, and Shaalbim. But when the house of Joseph grew in strength, they pressed the Amorites into forced labor.

⁴⁷(Later, when the territory of the Danites was lost to them, they went up and fought against Leshem, captured it, and put it to the sword. So they took possession of Leshem, settled there, and renamed it after their father Dan.)

¹In those days there was no king in Israel, and the tribe of the Danites was looking for territory to occupy. For up to that time they had not come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.

⁴²Shaalabbin, Aijalon, Ithlah,

¹²On the day that the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”

¹²Then Elon the Zebulunite died, and he was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

⁹Ben-deker in Makaz, in Shaalbim, in Beth-shemesh, and in Elon-beth-hanan;

⁴cross south of the Ascent of Akrabbim, continue to Zin, and go south of Kadesh-barnea. Then it will go on to Hazar-addar and proceed to Azmon,

²Their southern border started at the bay on the southern tip of the Salt Sea,

³proceeded south of the Ascent of Akrabbim, continued on to Zin, went over to the south of Kadesh-barnea, ran past Hezron up to Addar, and curved toward Karka.