All the reinforcements in Ai were ordered to chase them; they chased Joshua and were lured away from the city.

Three days after they made the treaty with them, the Israelites found out they were from the local area and lived nearby.

But don’t you delay! Chase your enemies and catch them! Don’t allow them to retreat to their cities, for the Lord your God is handing them over to you.”

Then Joshua executed them and hung them on five trees. They were left hanging on the trees until evening.

My countrymen who accompanied me frightened the people, but I remained loyal to the Lord my God.

A long time passed after the Lord made Israel secure from all their enemies, and Joshua was very old.

When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, you arrived at the sea. The Egyptians chased your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea.

If you abandon the Lord and worship foreign gods, he will turn against you; he will bring disaster on you and destroy you, though he once treated you well.”

After all this Joshua son of Nun, the Lord’s servant, died at the age of one hundred ten.

After Joshua died, the Israelites asked the Lord, “Who should lead the invasion against the Canaanites and launch the attack?”

When a leader died, the next generation would again act more wickedly than the previous one. They would follow after other gods, worshiping them and bowing down to them. They did not give up their practices or their stubborn ways.

After Gideon died, the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They made Baal-Berith their god.

After Abimelech’s death, Tola son of Puah, grandson of Dodo, from the tribe of Issachar, rose up to deliver Israel. He lived in Shamir in the Ephraimite hill country.

So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met the man, he said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” He said, “Yes.”

So Ruth went and gathered grain in the fields behind the harvesters. Now she just happened to end up in the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

She asked, ‘May I follow the harvesters and gather grain among the bundles?’ Since she arrived she has been working hard from this morning until now – except for sitting in the resting hut a short time.”

He said, “May you be rewarded by the Lord, my dear! This act of devotion is greater than what you did before. For you have not sought to marry one of the young men, whether rich or poor.

On one occasion in Shiloh, after they had finished eating and drinking, Hannah got up. (Now at the time Eli the priest was sitting in his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s temple.)

It was quite a long time – some twenty years in all – that the ark stayed at Kiriath Jearim. All the people of Israel longed for the Lord.

You should not turn aside after empty things that can’t profit and can’t deliver, since they are empty.