That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”

God gave Oreb and Zeeb, the Midianite leaders, into your hands. What was I able to do compared to you?” At this, their resentment against him subsided.

Gideon’s Death

Thus Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. During Gideon’s lifetime, the land had peace forty years.

No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god

and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.

When Jotham was told about this, he climbed up on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, “Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, so that God may listen to you.

“But the olive tree answered, ‘Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and humans are honored, to hold sway over the trees?’

“But the vine answered, ‘Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans, to hold sway over the trees?’

God stirred up animosity between Abimelek and the citizens of Shechem so that they acted treacherously against Abimelek.

God did this in order that the crime against Jerub-Baal’s seventy sons, the shedding of their blood, might be avenged on their brother Abimelek and on the citizens of Shechem, who had helped him murder his brothers.

After they had gone out into the fields and gathered the grapes and trodden them, they held a festival in the temple of their god. While they were eating and drinking, they cursed Abimelek.

Thus God repaid the wickedness that Abimelek had done to his father by murdering his seventy brothers.

God also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them.

Jephthah

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the Lord and no longer served him,

Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, “We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.”

But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you.

Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”

Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.

The king of the Ammonites answered Jephthah’s messengers, “When Israel came up out of Egypt, they took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, all the way to the Jordan. Now give it back peaceably.”

“Then the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and his whole army into Israel’s hands, and they defeated them. Israel took over all the land of the Amorites who lived in that country,

“Now since the Lord, the God of Israel, has driven the Amorites out before his people Israel, what right have you to take it over?

Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess.

You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

Then the woman went to her husband and told him, “A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name.