They were having a good time, ¹  when suddenly ²  some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, ³  surrounded the house and kept beating ⁴  on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.” ⁵ 

When Gideon arrived, he heard a man telling another man about a dream he had. ¹  The man ²  said, “Look! I had a dream. I saw ³  a stale cake of barley bread rolling into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent so hard it knocked it over and turned it upside down. The tent just collapsed.” ⁴ 

Gilead’s wife also gave ¹  him sons. When his wife’s sons grew up, they made Jephthah leave and said to him, “You are not going to inherit any of our father’s wealth, ²  because you are another woman’s son.”

Delilah said to Samson, “Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies. Tell me how you can be subdued.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven braids of my hair ¹  into the fabric on the loom ²  and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.”

When Jephthah came home to Mizpah, there was his daughter hurrying out ¹  to meet him, dancing to the rhythm of tambourines. ²  She was his only child; except for her he had no son or daughter.

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.

He scooped it up with his hands and ate it as he walked along. When he returned ¹  to his father and mother, he offered them some and they ate it. But he did not tell them he had scooped the honey out of the lion’s carcass. ² 

Gideon went and prepared a young goat, ¹  along with unleavened bread made from an ephah of flour. He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot. He brought the food ²  to him under the oak tree and presented it to him.

He said to his mother, “You know ¹  the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen ²  from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole ³  it, but now I am giving it back to you.” ⁴  His mother said, “May the Lord reward ⁵  you, my son!”

They waited so long they were embarrassed, but he still did not open the doors of the upper room. Finally they took the key and opened the doors. ¹  Right before their eyes was their master, sprawled out dead on the floor! ² 

When the three hundred men blew their trumpets, the Lord caused the Midianites to attack one another with their swords ¹  throughout ²  the camp. The army fled to Beth Shittah on the way to Zererah. They went ³  to the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath.

The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men who lapped I will deliver the whole army ¹  and I will hand Midian over to you. ²  The rest of the men should go home.” ³ 

On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him, “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” He said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, ¹  you would not have solved my riddle!”

When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, “I solemnly dedicate ¹  this silver to the Lord. It will be for my son’s benefit. We will use it to make a carved image and a metal image.” ² 

The five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish ¹  said to their kinsmen, ²  “Do you realize that inside these houses are an ephod, some personal idols, a carved image, and a metal image? Decide now what you want to do.”

her husband came ¹  after her, hoping he could convince her to return. ²  He brought with him his servant ³  and a pair of donkeys. When she brought him into her father’s house and the girl’s father saw him, he greeted him warmly. ⁴ 

Do this: ¹  exterminate every male, as well as every woman who has had sexual relations with a male. ²  But spare the lives of any virgins.” So they did as instructed. ³ 

Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, ¹  “Come on, ²  you strike us, for a man is judged by his strength.” ³  So Gideon killed ⁴  Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent-shaped ornaments which were on the necks of their camels.

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

He had thirty sons. He arranged for thirty of his daughters to be married outside his extended family, ¹  and he arranged for thirty young women to be brought from outside as wives for his sons. ²  Ibzan ³  led ⁴  Israel for seven years;