The Israelites went up to Bethel and asked God, “Who should lead the charge against the Benjaminites?” The Lord said, “Judah should lead.”

The Benjaminites again attacked them from Gibeah and struck down eighteen thousand sword-wielding Israelite soldiers.

The Israelites and the men hiding in ambush had arranged a signal. When the men hiding in ambush sent up a smoke signal from the city,

When the Lord’s messenger finished speaking these words to all the Israelites, the people wept loudly.

The Lord raised up leaders who delivered them from these robbers.

The Lord’s messenger appeared and said to him, “The Lord is with you, courageous warrior!”

The Israelites did not remain true to the Lord their God, who had delivered them from all the enemies who lived around them.

The Lord’s messenger told Manoah, “Your wife should pay attention to everything I told her.

The Benjaminites came from their cities and assembled at Gibeah to make war against the Israelites.

When Gideon realized that it was the Lord’s messenger, he said, “Oh no! Master, Lord! I have seen the Lord’s messenger face to face!”

All the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people from the east assembled. They crossed the Jordan River and camped in the Jezreel Valley.

‘Call judgment down on Meroz,’ says the Lord’s angelic messenger; ‘Be sure to call judgment down on those who live there, because they did not come to help in the Lord’s battle, to help in the Lord’s battle against the warriors.’

The Ammonite king said to Jephthah’s messengers, “Because Israel stole my land when they came up from Egypt – from the Arnon River in the south to the Jabbok River in the north, and as far west as the Jordan. Now return it peaceably!”

They retreated before the Israelites, taking the road to the wilderness. But the battle overtook them as men from the surrounding cities struck them down.

The Lord’s messenger did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. After all this happened Manoah realized that the visitor had been the Lord’s messenger.

They stopped there, went inside the young Levite’s house (which belonged to Micah), and asked him how he was doing.

But his master said to him, “We should not stop at a foreign city where non-Israelites live. We will travel on to Gibeah.”

The Benjaminites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah. Then the Israelites said, “Explain how this wicked thing happened!”

That day the Benjaminites mustered from their cities twenty-six thousand sword-wielding soldiers, besides seven hundred well-trained soldiers from Gibeah.

The Benjaminites returned at that time, and the Israelites gave to them the women they had spared from Jabesh Gilead. But there were not enough to go around.