They were left to test Israel, so the Lord would know if his people would obey the commands he gave their ancestors through Moses.

The Lord turned them over to King Jabin of Canaan, who ruled in Hazor. The general of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim.

O Lord, when you departed from Seir, when you marched from Edom’s plains, the earth shook, the heavens poured down, the clouds poured down rain.

May all your enemies perish like this, O Lord! But may those who love you shine like the rising sun at its brightest!” And the land had rest for forty years.

I said to you, “I am the Lord your God! Do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are now living!” But you have disobeyed me.’”

Then the Lord himself turned to him and said, “You have the strength. Deliver Israel from the power of the Midianites! Have I not sent you?”

Gideon built an altar for the Lord there, and named it “The Lord is on friendly terms with me.” To this day it is still there in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Gideon said, “Since you will not help, after the Lord hands Zebah and Zalmunna over to me, I will thresh your skin with desert thorns and briers.”

He said, “They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. I swear, as surely as the Lord is alive, if you had let them live, I would not kill you.”

Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.”

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

The Israelites cried out for help to the Lord: “We have sinned against you. We abandoned our God and worshiped the Baals.”

The Lord said to the Israelites, “Did I not deliver you from Egypt, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines,

But the Israelites said to the Lord, “We have sinned. You do to us as you see fit, but deliver us today!”

The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will judge any grievance you have against us, if we do not do as you say.”

You have the right to take what Chemosh your god gives you, but we will take the land of all whom the Lord our God has driven out before us.

The Lord’s angelic messenger appeared to the woman and said to her, “You are infertile and childless, but you will conceive and have a son.

As the flame went up from the altar toward the sky, the Lord’s messenger went up in it while Manoah and his wife watched. They fell facedown to the ground.

The Lord’s spirit empowered him and he tore the lion in two with his bare hands as easily as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

She said, “The Philistines are here, Samson!” He woke up and thought, “I will do as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not realize that the Lord had left him.