Judges.
Judges 2.
10 Once all Joshua’s generation joined their ancestors, another generation came after them.
They didn’t know the LORD. Nor the work he did for Israel.
11 Israel’s descendants did evil in the LORD’s eyes. They served the Baal pantheon.
12 They abandoned the LORD, their ancestors’ God, who brought them out of Egypt’s land.
They followed other gods, the gods of the other peoples around them.
They worshiped them, and provoked the LORD.
13 They left the LORD, and served Baal and Astarte.
14 The LORD’s nostrils burned towards Israel:
He put them in the hand of raiders, who raided them.
He sold them to the hand of their enemies around them.
They weren’t able to withstand their enemies’ face any longer.
15 Everyone who abandoned the LORD’s hand to be with other gods, experienced evil
like the LORD had spoken of, like the LORD swore to them he’d forcefully hold back from them.
16 The LORD set up judges to rescue Israel from the raiders’ hand,
17 but Israel didn’t listen to his judges, for they were “doing it” with these other gods.
They worshiped them. They hurried to abandon the ways their ancestors walked.
Ancestors listened to the LORD’s commands; they didn’t do likewise.
18 When the LORD raised up a judge for them, the LORD was with the judge:
The LORD rescued them from the hand of their enemies for all the days of the judge.
Thus the LORD would comfort them from groaning
in the face of those who pressured and crowded them.
19 Then when the judge died, they backslid: They trashed what their ancestors did.
They followed other gods, to serve and worship them. They didn’t repent from their deeds, from their hard ways.
20 The LORD’s nostrils burned towards Israel. He said, “Because of it,
this nation violates the relationship I assigned their ancestors. They won’t listen to my voice.
21 So I’ll no longer dispossess the people ahead of them, the nations still there when Joshua died.
22 I’ll use them on Israel: Will they walk the LORD’s way, like their ancestors did, or not?”
Judges 6.
11 The LORD’s angel came and sat under an oak tree in Ofra which belonged to Joash of Abiezer.
Gideon, his son, was threshing wheat in the wine-trough, to hide it from Midian's sight.
12 The LORD’s angel appeared to him and told him, “The LORD is with you, brave warrior.”
13 Gideon told him, “Master, is the LORD with us? Why has all this befallen us?
Where are all the miracles our fathers told us about? Didn’t the LORD bring us out of Egypt?
The LORD abandoned us, and gave us to Midian to squeeze.”
14 The LORD faced him and said, “Take this attitude of yours, and save Israel from Midian’s squeeze.
Aren’t I sending you?”
15 Gideon told God, “Master, with what can I save Israel?
Look, my clan is the smallest in Manasseh. I’m the lowest in my father’s house.”
16 The LORD told him, “I’ll come with you.
You’ll knock down Midian as if it’s one man.”
17 Gideon told God, “Please, if I have grace in your eyes, do a sign for me which proves you speak with me.
18 Please don’t leave here till I come to you with my gift, and present it to you.”
God said, “I’ll sit till you return.”
19 Gideon entered the house and prepared a goat kid and a basket of matzoh.
He put the meat on a tray and the broth in a pot, and brought it out to the LORD under the oak.
20 God’s angel told him, “Take the meat and matzoh and put it on this boulder.
Pour out the broth.”
Gideon did so, 21 and the LORD’s angel stretched out the tip of the staff in his hand,
touched the meat and matzoh, and fire came out of the boulder, devouring the meat and matzoh.
Then the LORD’s angel vanished. 22 Gideon realized he was the LORD’s angel,
and Gideon said, “Aee, my Master LORD! I’ve seen the LORD’s angel face to face!”
23 The LORD told him, “Shalom. Don’t be afraid. You won’t die.”
24 Gideon built an altar to the LORD there, called YHWH-Shalom, which is still today in Ofra, in Abiezer.
36 Gideon told God, “If you put salvation in my hand for Israel, like you said,
37 look: I put a wool fleece on the threshing-floor.
If dew is only on the fleece, yet all the ground is dry,
I know you’ll save Israel by my hand, like you said.”
38 And it was so: He rose early in the morning,
squeezed the fleece to drain the dew from the fleece, and filled a bowl with water.
39 Gideon told God, “Don’t flare your nostrils at me—let me just say this;
let me test you this once; please just once.
The fleece—please, make only the fleece dry, and all the ground be dewy.”
40 And God did so: By nightfall, the fleece alone dried, and dew covered all the ground.
Judges 11.
30 Jefta vowed a vow to the LORD. He said, “If you give answers to prayer,
give the sons of Ammon into my hand.
31 My offering will be whatever goes out the door of my house to meet me on my return,
in peace after battling the sons of Ammon.
It’s for the LORD; it goes up in the fire.”
34 Jefta came to Mitzpa, to home.
Look: His daughter went out to meet him with a timbrel and a dance.
Only she; he had no other sons nor daughters.
35 On seeing her, he tore his garment in mourning.
He said, “Ah, my daughter, you brought me down, brought me down.
You are trouble to me.
I opened my mouth to the LORD; I can’t take it back.”
36 She told him, “Dad, you opened your mouth to the LORD.
Do to me what went out of your mouth,
after which the LORD will avenge you upon your enemies, Ammon’s sons.”
37 She told her father, “Do for me this thing: Stay away from me for two months.
I will go up and down the hills; I will weep for my virginity, I and my friends.”
38 He said go, and sent her away two months.
She went, she and her friends, and wept for her virginity on the hills.
39 When it was the end of two months, she returned to her father.
He did to her what he vowed. She knew no man. This was the custom in Israel.
Judges 13.
22 Manoa told his woman, “Dead. We’re dead, because we saw God.”
23 Manoa’s woman told him, “If the LORD were leaning towards our death,
he wouldn’t take a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands;
he wouldn’t show us all these things; he wouldn’t take the time to listen to us like this.”