<t /><p class="bodytext">There was a young man from Bethlehem<n id="1" /> in Judah. He was a Levite who had been temporarily residing among the tribe of Judah.<n id="2" />

Now Ehud had escaped while they were delaying. When he passed the carved images, he escaped to Seirah.p>

The <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s messenger said to him, &#8220;You should not ask me my name, because you cannot comprehend it.&#8221;<n id="1" />

<p class="bodytext">When Ehud had left, Eglon&#8217;s<n id="1" /> servants came and saw the locked doors of the upper room. They said, &#8220;He must be relieving himself<n id="2" /> in the well-ventilated inner room.&#8221;<n id="3" />

<p class="bodytext">When he reached Seirah,<n id="1" /> he blew a trumpet<n id="2" /> in the Ephraimite hill country. The Israelites went down with him from the hill country, with Ehud in the lead.<n id="3" />

The <sc>Lordsc> turned them over to<n id="1" /> King Jabin of Canaan, who ruled in Hazor.<n id="2" /> The general of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim.<n id="3" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">After Abimelech&#8217;s death,<n id="1" /> Tola son of Puah, grandson<n id="2" /> of Dodo, from the tribe of Issachar,<n id="3" /> rose up to deliver Israel. He lived in Shamir in the Ephraimite hill country.

<p class="bodytext">Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a brave warrior. His mother was a prostitute, but Gilead was his father.<n id="1" />

She said, &#8220;The Philistines are here,<n id="1" /> Samson!&#8221; He woke up<n id="2" /> and thought,<n id="3" /> &#8220;I will do as I did before<n id="4" /> and shake myself free.&#8221; But he did not realize that the <sc>Lordsc> had left him.

But he went back<n id="1" /> once he reached<n id="2" /> the carved images<n id="3" /> at Gilgal. He said to Eglon,<n id="4" /> &#8220;I have a secret message for you, O king.&#8221; Eglon<n id="5" /> said, &#8220;Be quiet!&#8221;<n id="6" /> All his attendants left.

When Ehud approached him, he was sitting in his well-ventilated<n id="1" /> upper room all by himself. Ehud said, &#8220;I have a message from God<n id="2" /> for you.&#8221; When Eglon rose up from his seat,<n id="3" />

The Israelites cried out for help to the <sc>Lordsc>, because Sisera<n id="1" /> had nine hundred chariots with iron-rimmed wheels,<n id="2" /> and he cruelly<n id="3" /> oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.p>

Then Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other.<n id="1" /> She crept up on him, drove the tent peg through his temple into the ground<n id="2" /> while he was asleep from exhaustion,<n id="3" /> and he died.

Look, you will conceive and have a son.<n id="1" /> You must never cut his hair,<n id="2" /> for the child will be dedicated to God<n id="3" /> from birth. He will begin to deliver Israel from the power<n id="4" /> of the Philistines.&#8221;p>

His brothers and all his family<n id="1" /> went down and brought him back.<n id="2" /> They buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led<n id="3" /> Israel for twenty years.p>

<p class="bodytext">But then an old man passed by, returning at the end of the day from his work in the field.<n id="1" /> The man was from the Ephraimite hill country; he was living temporarily in Gibeah. (The residents of the town were Benjaminites.)<n id="2" />