Be careful during an outbreak of leprosy to follow precisely ¹  all that the Levitical priests instruct you; as I have commanded them, so you should do.

The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children.

He told ¹  them, “Look, set an ambush behind the city. Don’t go very far from the city; all of you be ready!

They told him, “Your subjects ¹  have come from a very distant land because of the reputation ²  of the Lord your God, for we have heard the news about all he did in Egypt ³ 

These wineskins we filled were brand new, but look how they have ripped. Our clothes and sandals have worn out because it has been a very long journey.”

¹ Joshua summoned the Gibeonites ²  and said to them, “Why did you trick ³  us by saying, ‘We live far away from you,’ when you really live nearby? ⁴ 

All Jerusalem was terrified ¹  because Gibeon was a large city, like one of the royal cities. It was larger than Ai and all its men were warriors.

Joshua and the Israelites almost totally wiped them out, but some survivors did escape to the fortified cities. ¹ 

These kings came out with their armies; they were as numerous as the sand on the seashore and had a large number of horses and chariots. ¹ 

When Joshua was very old, ¹  the Lord told him, “You are very old, and a great deal of land remains to be conquered.

Be very strong! Carefully obey ¹  all that is written in the law scroll of Moses so you won’t swerve from it to the right or the left,

Whenever they went out to fight, ¹  the Lord did them harm, ²  just as he had warned and solemnly vowed he would do. ³  They suffered greatly. ⁴ 

The Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight with Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. ¹  Israel suffered greatly. ² 

Jephthah said to them, “My people and I were entangled in controversy with the Ammonites. ¹  I asked for your help, but you did not deliver me from their power. ² 

But she replied ¹  to them, ²  “Don’t call me ‘Naomi’! ³  Call me ‘Mara’ ⁴  because the Sovereign One ⁵  has treated me very harshly. ⁶ 

The sin of these young men was very great in the Lord’s sight, for they ¹  treated the Lord’s offering with contempt.

So the Philistines fought. Israel was defeated; they all ran home. ¹  The slaughter was very great; thirty thousand foot soldiers fell in battle.

So Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord made it thunder and rain that day. All the people were very afraid of both the Lord and Samuel.

Saul and all the army that was with him assembled and marched into battle, where they found ¹  the Philistines in total panic killing one another with their swords. ² 

This made Saul very angry. The statement displeased him and he thought, ¹  “They have attributed to David tens of thousands, but to me they have attributed only thousands. What does he lack, except the kingdom?”