I have not done you wrong, ¹  but you are doing wrong ²  by attacking me. May the Lord, the Judge, judge this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites!’”

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight, ¹  so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.

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.”

All the Israelites from Dan to Beer Sheba ¹  and from the land of Gilead ²  left their homes ³  and assembled together ⁴  before the Lord at Mizpah.

The Israelites went up to Bethel ¹  and asked God, ²  “Who should lead the charge against the Benjaminites?” ³  The Lord said, “Judah should lead.”

Then the Benjaminites saw they were defeated. The Israelites retreated before ¹  Benjamin, because they had confidence in the men they had hid in ambush outside Gibeah.

The Israelites and the men hiding in ambush had arranged a signal. When the men hiding in ambush ¹  sent up a smoke signal from the city,

They retreated before the Israelites, taking the road to the wilderness. But the battle overtook ¹  them as men from the surrounding cities struck them down. ² 

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

The Israelites regretted what had happened to ¹  their brother Benjamin. They said, “Today we cut off an entire ²  tribe from Israel!

The Benjaminites returned at that time, and the Israelites ¹  gave to them the women they had spared from Jabesh Gilead. But there were not enough to go around. ² 

But we can’t allow our daughters to marry them, ¹  for the Israelites took an oath, saying, ‘Whoever gives a woman to a Benjaminite will be destroyed!’ ² 

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

Why harden your hearts like the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? ¹  When God ²  treated them harshly, didn’t the Egyptians send the Israelites on their way? ³ 

The Israelites said to Samuel, “Keep ¹  crying out to the Lord our ²  God so that he may save us ³  from the hand of the Philistines!”

When Saul counted them at Bezek, the Israelites were 300,000 ¹  strong and the men of Judah numbered 30,000. ² 

When all the Israelites who had hidden themselves in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines had fled, they too pursued them in battle.

There were also male cultic prostitutes ¹  in the land. They committed the same horrible sins as the nations ²  that the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites.

He was so wicked he worshiped the disgusting idols, ¹  just like the Amorites ²  whom the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites.)

The Lord provided a deliverer ¹  for Israel and they were freed from Syria’s power. ²  The Israelites once more lived in security. ³