The Lord, however, said to me, “Don’t be afraid of him because I have already given him, his whole army, ¹  and his land to you. You will do to him exactly what you did to King Sihon of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon.”

I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you ¹  today that you will surely and swiftly be removed ²  from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be ³  annihilated.

Rather it is because of his ¹  love ²  for you and his faithfulness to the promise ³  he solemnly vowed ⁴  to your ancestors ⁵  that the Lord brought you out with great power, ⁶  redeeming ⁷  you from the place of slavery, from the power ⁸  of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

And he said to me, “Get up, go down at once from here because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have sinned! They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a cast metal image.” ¹ 

Otherwise the people of the land ¹  from which you brought us will say, “The Lord was unable to bring them to the land he promised them, and because of his hatred for them he has brought them out to kill them in the desert.” ² 

Then the Levites (because they have no allotment or inheritance with you), the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.

At that time ¹  my anger will erupt against them ²  and I will abandon them and hide my face from them until they are devoured. Many disasters and distresses will overcome ³  them ⁴  so that they ⁵  will say at that time, ‘Have not these disasters ⁶  overcome us ⁷  because our ⁸  God is not among us ⁹ ?’

Get up! Ritually consecrate the people and tell them this: ‘Ritually consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, because the Lord God of Israel says, “You are contaminated, ¹  O Israel! You will not be able to stand before your enemies until you remove what is contaminating you.” ² 

They said to Joshua, “It was carefully reported to your subjects ¹  how the Lord your God commanded Moses his servant to assign you the whole land and to destroy all who live in the land from before you. Because of you we were terrified ²  we would lose our lives, so we did this thing.

Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the priest, said to the Reubenites, Gadites, and the Manassehites, ¹  “Today we know that the Lord is among us, because you have not disobeyed the Lord in this. ²  Now ³  you have rescued the Israelites from the Lord’s judgment.” ⁴ 

When the Lord raised up leaders for them, the Lord was with each leader and delivered the people ¹  from their enemies while the leader remained alive. The Lord felt sorry for them ²  when they cried out in agony because of what their harsh oppressors did to them. ³ 

‘Call judgment down on ¹  Meroz,’ says the Lord’s angelic ²  messenger; ‘Be sure ³  to call judgment down on ⁴  those who live there, because they did not come to help in the Lord’s battle, ⁵  to help in the Lord’s battle against the warriors.’ ⁶ 

But you have attacked ¹  my father’s family ²  today. You murdered his seventy legitimate ³  sons on one stone and made Abimelech, the son of his female slave, king over the leaders of Shechem, just because he is your close relative. ⁴ 

Gilead’s wife also gave ¹  him sons. When his wife’s sons grew up, they made Jephthah leave and said to him, “You are not going to inherit any of our father’s wealth, ²  because you are another woman’s son.”

The Ammonite king said to Jephthah’s messengers, “Because Israel stole ¹  my land when they ²  came up from Egypt – from the Arnon River in the south to the Jabbok River in the north, and as far west as the Jordan. ³  Now return it ⁴  peaceably!”

The Lord’s messenger said to Manoah, “If I stay, ¹  I will not eat your food. But if you want to make a burnt sacrifice to the Lord, you should offer it.” (He said this because Manoah did not know that he was the Lord’s messenger.) ² 

But his father and mother said to him, “Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our ¹  people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” ²  But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, ³  because she is the right one for me.” ⁴ 

The Philistines asked, ¹  “Who did this?” They were told, ²  “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite ³  took Samson’s ⁴  bride and gave her to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father. ⁵ 

In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the Danite tribe was looking for a place ¹  to settle, because at that time they did not yet have a place to call their own among the tribes of Israel. ² 

So she decided to return home from the region of Moab, accompanied by her daughters-in-law, ¹  because while she was living in Moab ²  she had heard that the Lord had shown concern ³  for his people, reversing the famine by providing abundant crops. ⁴