Study Desk

Remember our sin at Peor, when the Lord punished his own people with an epidemic? We are still suffering because of that. Wasn't that sin enough?

Remember how Achan son of Zerah refused to obey the command about the things condemned to destruction; the whole community of Israel was punished for that. Achan was not the only one who died because of his sin."

No! We did it because we were afraid that in the future your descendants would say to ours, ‘What do you have to do with the Lord , the God of Israel?

You have seen everything that the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you. The Lord your God has been fighting for you.

Any one of you can make a thousand men run away, because the Lord your God is fighting for you, just as he promised.

Whenever the Lord gave Israel a leader, the Lord would help that leader and would save the people from their enemies as long as that leader lived. The Lord would have mercy on them because they groaned under their suffering and oppression.

Then the Lord would become furious with Israel and say, "This nation has broken the covenant that I commanded their ancestors to keep. Because they have not obeyed me,

The people of Israel sinned against the Lord again. Because of this the Lord made King Eglon of Moab stronger than Israel.

She answered, "All right, I will go with you, but you won't get any credit for the victory, because the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman." So Deborah set off for Kedesh with Barak.

Sisera ran away to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because King Jabin of Hazor was at peace with Heber's family.

The Lord answered, "You can do it because I will help you. You will crush the Midianites as easily as if they were only one man."

From then on Gideon was known as Jerubbaal, because Joash said, "Let Baal defend himself; it is his altar that was torn down."

Then Gideon went to the men of Sukkoth and said, "Remember when you refused to help me? You said that you couldn't give any food to my exhausted army because I hadn't captured Zebah and Zalmunna yet. Well, here they are!"

Then he said to Jether, his oldest son, "Go ahead, kill them!" But the boy did not draw his sword. He hesitated, because he was still only a boy.

He had seventy sons, because he had many wives.

His mother's relatives talked to the men of Shechem about this for him, and the men of Shechem decided to follow Abimelech because he was their relative.

But today you turned against my father's family. You killed his sons—seventy men on a single stone—and just because Abimelech, his son by his servant woman, is your relative, you have made him king of Shechem.

Then because he was afraid of his brother Abimelech, Jotham ran away and went to live at Beer.

They said to Jephthah, "We are turning to you now because we want you to go with us and fight the Ammonites and lead all the people of Gilead."

Then they went on through the desert, going around the land of Edom and the land of Moab until they came to the east side of Moab, on the other side of the Arnon River. They camped there, but they did not cross the Arnon because it was the boundary of Moab.