the Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, along with his sons ¹  and everyone else. ² 

We will be like all the other nations. Our king will judge us and lead us ¹  and fight our battles.”

Abner said to Joab, “Let the soldiers get up and fight ¹  before us.” Joab said, “So be it!” ² 

They will attack ¹  us until we have lured them from the city, for they will say, ‘They are retreating from us like before.’ We will retreat from them.

Then the Benjaminites said, “They are defeated just as before.” But the Israelites said, “Let’s retreat ¹  and lure them ²  away from the city into the main roads.”

We have not obeyed ¹  the LORD our God by living according to ²  his laws ³  that he set before us through his servants the prophets.

They said to me, ‘Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this fellow Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’

So all of you approached me and said, “Let’s send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there.”

From Aroer, ¹  which is at the edge of Wadi Arnon (it is the city in the wadi), ²  all the way to Gilead there was not a town able to resist us – the Lord our God gave them all to us.

the Israelites counterattacked. ¹  Benjamin had begun to strike down the Israelites; ²  they struck down ³  about thirty men. They said, “There’s no doubt about it! They are totally defeated as in the earlier battle.”

While they were going down to the edge of town, Samuel said to Saul, “Tell the servant to go on ahead of us.” So he did. ¹  Samuel then said, ²  “You remain here awhile, so I can inform you of God’s message.”

He said to the people of Judah: ¹  “Let’s build these cities and fortify them with walls, towers, and barred gates. ²  The land remains ours because we have followed ³  the Lord our God and he has made us secure on all sides.” ⁴  So they built the cities ⁵  and prospered.

¹ When the people saw that Moses delayed ²  in coming down ³  from the mountain, they ⁴  gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Get up, ⁵  make us gods ⁶  that will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, ⁷  the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what ⁸  has become of him!”