Then the Israelites dispersed from there to their respective tribal and clan territories. Each went from there to his own property. ¹ 

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 

When the man got ready to leave ¹  with his concubine and his servant, ²  his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him, “Look! The day is almost over! ³  Stay another night! Since the day is over, ⁴  stay another night here and have a good time. You can get up early tomorrow and start your trip home.” ⁵ 

All Israel rose up in unison ¹  and said, “Not one of us will go home! ²  Not one of us will return ³  to his house!

Jephthah led ¹  Israel for six years; then he ²  died and was buried in his city in Gilead. ³ 

When Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, ¹  captured it, Caleb ²  gave him his daughter Acsah as a wife.

But you have attacked ¹  my father’s family ²  today. You murdered his seventy legitimate ³  sons on one stone and made Abimelech, the son of his female slave, king over the leaders of Shechem, just because he is your close relative. ⁴ 

When he got home, he took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces. ¹  Then he sent the pieces throughout Israel. ² 

Gideon son of Joash died at a very ¹  old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash located in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

The Israelites had taken an oath in Mizpah, saying, “Not one of us will allow his daughter to marry a Benjaminite.”

So if you have shown loyalty and integrity to Jerub-Baal and his family ¹  today, then may Abimelech bring you happiness and may you bring him happiness! ² 

So Jephthah left ¹  his half-brothers ²  and lived in the land of Tob. Lawless men joined Jephthah’s gang and traveled with him. ³ 

When he got home, ¹  he told his father and mother, “A Philistine girl in Timnah has caught my eye. ²  Now get her for my wife.”

When her master ¹  got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went outside to start on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, sprawled out on the doorstep of the house with her hands on the threshold.

He said to his servant, ¹  “Come on, we will go into one of the other towns ²  and spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah.”

He showed them a secret entrance into the city, and they put the city to the sword. But they let the man and his extended family leave safely.

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

The handle went in after the blade, and the fat closed around the blade, for Ehud ¹  did not pull the sword out of his belly. 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.

But his master said to him, “We should not stop at a foreign city where non-Israelites live. ¹  We will travel on to Gibeah.”