Judges 3-4

Common English Bible

Nations remaining in the land

3 These are the nations that the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had no firsthand knowledge of the wars of Canaan. ² They survived only to teach war to the generations of Israelites who had no firsthand knowledge of the earlier wars: ³ the five rulers of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, Sidonians, and Hivites who lived in the highlands of Lebanon from Mount Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath. ⁴ They were to be the test for Israel, to find out whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had made to their ancestors through Moses. ⁵ So the Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ⁶ But the Israelites intermarried with them and served their gods.

Othniel, the model judge

⁷ The Israelites did things that the Lord saw as evil, and they forgot the Lord their God. They served the Baals and the Asherahs.^{[a] 8} The Lord became angry with Israel and gave them over to King Cushan-rishathaim of Aram-naharaim. The Israelites served Cushan-rishathaim eight years. ⁹ But then they cried out to the Lord. So the Lord raised up a deliverer for the Israelites, Othniel, Kenaz’s son, Caleb’s younger brother, who rescued them. ¹⁰ The Lord’s spirit was in Othniel, and he led Israel. When he marched out for war, the Lord handed over Aram’s King Cushan-rishathaim. Othniel overpowered Cushan-rishathaim, ¹¹ and the land was peaceful for forty years, until Othniel, Kenaz’s son, died.

Ehud

¹² The Israelites again did things that the Lord saw as evil, and the Lord put Moab’s King Eglon in power over them, because they did these things that the Lord saw as evil. ¹³ He convinced the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, defeated Israel, and took possession of Palm City. ¹⁴ So the Israelites served Moab’s King Eglon eighteen years.

¹⁵ Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord. So the Lord raised up a deliverer for them, Ehud, Gera’s son, a Benjaminite, who was left-handed. The Israelites sent him to take their tribute payment to Moab’s King Eglon. ¹⁶ Now Ehud made for himself a double-edged sword that was about a foot and a half long, and he strapped it on his right thigh under his clothes. ¹⁷ Then he presented the tribute payment to Moab’s King Eglon, who was a very fat man. ¹⁸ When he had finished delivering the tribute payment, Ehud sent on their way the people who had carried it. ¹⁹ But he himself turned back at the carved stones near Gilgal, and he said, “I have a secret message for you, King.”

So Eglon said, “Hush!” and all his attendants went out of his presence. ²⁰ Ehud approached him while he was sitting alone in his cool second-story room, and he said, “I have a message from God for you.” At that, Eglon got up from his throne. ²¹ Ehud reached with his left hand and grabbed the sword from his right thigh. He stabbed it into Eglon’s stomach, ²² and even the handle went in after the blade. Since he did not pull the sword out of his stomach, the fat closed over the blade, and his guts spilled out.^{[b] 23} Ehud slipped out to the porch, and closed and locked the doors of the second-story room behind him.

²⁴ After Ehud had slipped out, the king’s servants came and found that the room’s doors were locked. So they thought, He must be relieving himself in the cool chamber. ²⁵ They waited so long that they were embarrassed, but he never opened the doors of the room. Then they used the key to open them, and there was their master lying dead on the ground!

²⁶ Ehud had gotten away while they were waiting and had passed the carved stones and escaped to Seirah. ²⁷ When he arrived, he blew the ram’s horn in the Ephraim highlands. So the Israelites went down from the highlands with Ehud leading them. ²⁸ He told them, “Follow me, for the Lord has handed over your enemies the Moabites.” So they followed him, and they took control of the crossing points of the Jordan in the direction of Moab, allowing no one to cross. ²⁹ This time, they defeated the Moabites, about ten thousand big and strong men, and no one escaped. ³⁰ Moab was brought down by the power of Israel on that day, and there was peace in the land for eighty years.

Shamgar

³¹ After Ehud, Shamgar, Anath’s son, struck down six hundred Philistines with an animal prod. He too rescued Israel.

Deborah, Barak, and Jael

4 After Ehud had died, the Israelites again did things that the Lord saw as evil. ² So the Lord gave them over to King Jabin of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, and he was stationed in Harosheth-ha-goiim. ³ The Israelites cried out to the Lord because Sisera^[c] had nine hundred iron chariots and had oppressed the Israelites cruelly for twenty years.

⁴ Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth,^[d] was a leader of Israel at that time. ⁵ She would sit under Deborah’s palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in the Ephraim highlands, and the Israelites would come to her to settle disputes. ⁶ She sent word to Barak, Abinoam’s son, from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “Hasn’t the Lord, Israel’s God, issued you a command? ‘Go and assemble at Mount Tabor, taking ten thousand men from the people of Naphtali and Zebulun with you. ⁷ I’ll lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, to assemble with his chariots and troops against you at the Kishon River, and then I’ll help you overpower him.’”

⁸ Barak replied to her, “If you’ll go with me, I’ll go; but if not, I won’t go.”

⁹ Deborah answered, “I’ll definitely go with you. However, the path you’re taking won’t bring honor to you, because the Lord will hand over Sisera to a woman.” Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh. ¹⁰ He summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh, and ten thousand men marched out behind him. Deborah marched out with him too.

¹¹ Now Heber the Kenite had moved away from the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ father-in-law, and had settled as far away as Elon-bezaanannim, which is near Kedesh.

¹² When it was reported to Sisera that Barak, Abinoam’s son, had marched up to Mount Tabor, ¹³ Sisera summoned all of his nine hundred iron chariots and all of the soldiers who were with him from Harosheth-ha-goiim to the Kishon River. ¹⁴ Then Deborah said to Barak, “Get up! This is the day that the Lord has handed Sisera over to you. Hasn’t the Lord gone out before you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men behind him. ¹⁵ The Lord threw Sisera and all the chariots and army into a panic^[e] before Barak; Sisera himself got down from his chariot and fled on foot. ¹⁶ Barak pursued the chariots and the army all the way back to Harosheth-ha-goiim, killing Sisera’s entire army with the sword. No one survived.

¹⁷ Meanwhile, Sisera had fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was peace between Hazor’s King Jabin and the family of Heber the Kenite. ¹⁸ Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come in, sir, come in here. Don’t be afraid.” So he went with her into the tent, and she hid him under a blanket.

¹⁹ Sisera said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink. I’m thirsty.” So she opened a jug of milk, gave him a drink, and hid him again. ²⁰ Then he said to her, “Stand at the entrance to the tent. That way, if someone comes and asks you, ‘Is there a man here?’ you can say, ‘No.’”

²¹ But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent stake and a hammer. While Sisera was sound asleep from exhaustion, she tiptoed to him. She drove the stake through his head and down into the ground, and he died. ²² Just then, Barak arrived after chasing Sisera. Jael went out to meet him and said, “Come and I’ll show you the man you’re after.” So he went in with her, and there was Sisera, lying dead, with the stake through his head.

²³ So on that day God brought down Canaan’s King Jabin before the Israelites. ²⁴ And the power of the Israelites grew greater and greater over Canaan’s King Jabin until they defeated him completely.