Study Desk

Then all the men of Shechem and Bethmillo got together and went to the sacred oak tree at Shechem, where they made Abimelech king.

Then God made Abimelech and the men of Shechem hostile to each other, and they rebelled against Abimelech.

The men of Shechem put men in ambush against Abimelech on the mountaintops, and they robbed everyone who passed their way. Abimelech was told about this.

They all went out into their vineyards and picked the grapes, made wine from them, and held a festival. They went into the temple of their god, where they ate and drank and made fun of Abimelech.

He sent messengers to Abimelech at Arumah to say, "Gaal son of Ebed and his brothers have come to Shechem, and they are not going to let you into the city.

When Abimelech and his men saw Gaal come out and stand at the city gate, they got up from their hiding places.

Gaal saw them and said to Zebul, "Look! There are men coming down from the mountaintops!" "Those are not men," Zebul answered. "They are just shadows on the mountains."

Abimelech lived in Arumah, and Zebul drove Gaal and his brothers out of Shechem, so that they could no longer live there.

So everyone cut off a tree limb; then they followed Abimelech and piled the wood up against the stronghold. They set it on fire, with the people inside, and all the people of the fort died—about a thousand men and women.

There was a strong tower there, and every man and woman in the city, including the leaders, ran to it. They locked themselves in and went up to the roof.

Once again the Israelites sinned against the Lord by worshiping the Baals and the Astartes, as well as the gods of Syria, of Sidon, of Moab, of Ammon, and of Philistia. They abandoned the Lord and stopped worshiping him.

For eighteen years they oppressed and persecuted all the Israelites who lived in Amorite country east of the Jordan River in Gilead.

So they got rid of their foreign gods and worshiped the Lord ; and he became troubled over Israel's distress.

had other sons by his wife, and when they grew up, they forced Jephthah to leave home. They told him, "You will not inherit anything from our father; you are the son of another woman."

Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. There he attracted a group of worthless men, and they went around with him.

They told him, "Come and lead us, so that we can fight the Ammonites."

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."

The king of Ammon answered Jephthah's messengers, "When the Israelites came out of Egypt, they took away my land from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River and the Jordan River. Now you must give it back peacefully."

This is what happened: when the Israelites left Egypt, they went through the desert to the Gulf of Aqaba and came to Kadesh.

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.