Gideon used all this to make ¹  an ephod, ²  which he put in his hometown of Ophrah. All the Israelites ³  prostituted themselves to it by worshiping it ⁴  there. It became a snare to Gideon and his family.

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. ¹ 

When the Philistines saw he had no attendants, they gave him thirty groomsmen who kept him company. ¹ 

The people ¹  buried him in his allotted land ²  in Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

He went up from there to Penuel and made the same request. ¹  The men of Penuel responded the same way the men of Succoth had. ² 

The Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him in bronze chains. He became a grinder in the prison.

They retreated before the Israelites, taking the road to the wilderness. But the battle overtook ¹  them as men from the surrounding cities struck them down. ² 

But Joash said to all those who confronted him, ¹  “Must you fight Baal’s battles? ²  Must you rescue him? Whoever takes up his cause ³  will die by morning! ⁴  If he really is a god, let him fight his own battles! ⁵  After all, it was his altar that was pulled down.” ⁶ 

So he brought the men ¹  down to the water. Then the Lord said to Gideon, “Separate those who lap the water as a dog laps from those who kneel to drink.” ² 

So Jephthah went with the leaders of Gilead. The people made him their leader and commander. Jephthah repeated the terms of the agreement ¹  before the Lord in Mizpah.

then they said to him, “Say ‘Shibboleth!’” ¹  If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word ²  correctly), they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.

The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her, “Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate ¹  him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces.”

When they really started celebrating, ¹  they said, “Call for Samson so he can entertain us!” So they summoned Samson from the prison and he entertained them. ²  They made him stand between two pillars.

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