"Only Life Changes"

One day Samson decided to visit a Philistine girl friend of his named Delilah. When the kings of the Philistine cities knew he was there, they promised to give Delilah eleven hundreds pieces of silver if she would help them capture him. So Delilah begged Samson to tell her the secret of his great strength and how he could be made as weak as other men.

Samson told her a lie. He said that if he were tied with seven ropes made from green flax, then he would be as helpless as any other man.

{Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in cooler regions of the world. Textiles made from flax are known in Western countries as linen, and are traditionally used for bed sheets, underclothes, and table linen. Its oil is known as linseed oil. In addition to referring to the plant itself, the word “flax” may refer to the unspun fibers of the flax plant. The plant species is known only as a cultivated plant, and appears to have been domesticated just once from the wild species Linum bienne, called pale flax. The plants called “flax” in New Zealand are, by contrast, members of the genus Phormium.(Seven ropes made from green flax stems) Flax seeds are used in salads or you can make with tea for diet purposes. Just saying.}

Delilah told this to the kings of the Philistines, and she tied him with the ropes while he was asleep. Samson didn’t know there were men hiding in the room to grab him.

When she had tied Samson up she cried out, “The Philistines are here to get you, Samson!” Instantly, Samson woke up and broke the ropes as easily as if they were threads.

Delilah said he had mocked her and told her a lie and begged him to tell her the truth. How could he be tied up so that he couldn’t get away! This time Samson said that if he were tied with two new ropes that had never been used before, he would not be able to break them. So she took two new ropes and tied him, while men hid in the room, then called out to him as before that the Philistines were coming to get him. But he broke the new ropes as easily as before.

{My husband said, Samson has to know they are hiding in there room. I am telling Walt the story as I go. He He!}

Delilah scolded Samson for lying to her again, and again she begged Samson to tell her how to tie him so he couldn’t get away, Samson said that if she would weave his long hair into a loom, his strength would leave him and he would be helpless. So she did this. But when she told him the Philistines were coming, he was as strong as ever.

“How can you say, ‘I love you’ when all you do is make fun of me and lie to me?” She asked. Day after day she begged him to tell her and would give him no rest. At least Samson told her the truth. He told her he had been a Nazirite since he was born. His hair had never been cut, and if it were, he would no longer be strong, but as weak as other man.

Why did Samson tell her this secret? He was telling her how to take away the strength the Lord had given him to fight against the enemies of Israel. He did it because he had chosen a girl for his friend who didn’t care about god, and e listened to her until she persuaded him to do this great sin against God. You and I must be careful not to do wrong things even if people we like want us to and say we should. We must always listen to the Lord instead.

Delilah realized that this time Samson was finally telling her the truth. She sent this message to the kings of the Philistines; “Come once more; this time he has told me the truth!” So they came again and brought her the money they had promised.

Then, while Samson was asleep, a barber came and cut his hair.

Delilah woke Samson up and told him that the Philistines were coming to get him. He thought he could easily get away as he always had before, for he didn’t realize that the Lord had let his strength go away. But this time the Philistines caught him, for he could no longer fight against them, and they bound him with bronze chains. They poked out his eyes, making him blind, and shut him up in prison where they made him work very hard turning a millstone to grind their corn.

But while he was in prison, his hair began to grow longer again, and the Lord gave him back his strength.

One day the kings of the Philistines called the people together in their idol’s temple to offer a sacrifice to their god Dagon and to rejoice because Samson had been caught. Everyone present praised Dagon (he was and idol), because they thought he had helped them catch Samson! They were all very happy.

“Send for Samson so we can tease him,” someone suggested. So they brought blind Samson out of the prison and set him between the two pillars that held up the roof of the temple an d made fun of him there.

The temple was packed with people, including all the kings of the Philistines. Many of the people were having a party on the roof, while those inside the temple were laughing at Samson. A boy held him by the hand to lead him because he couldn’t see. Samson asked the boy to place his hands on the pillars that held up the temple roof, so he could lean against them. The boy did.

Then Samson prayed, “Oh Lord, help me, and give me strength only this once.” He gave a mighty push against the two pillars as he stood there between them, and said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” As he pushed, the pillars moved apart, and the roof fell on the kings of the Philistines and on all the people inside killing great numbers of them.

Samson died with them, but in his death he killed more of the enemies of Israel than Samson had while he was alive. Then his brothers came and took his dead body and buried it.

Questions:

Who was Delilah?

What did she want Samson to tell her?

Why was Samson so strong?

What happened to him when he finally told Delilah the truth?

What did the Philistines do to Samson?

How did he die?

{Judges Chapter 16}

“Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet.”

{I remember reading this story to my grandchildren when I was in a wheelchair. I remembering later I cried cause I wanted to be out of the wheelchair. So I was able to move around with my oxygen tank on my wheelchair. When I had free time, I would travel to church on Tuesday eve’s and travel to Kroger’s in my wheelchair. I traveled to church on A Sunday and got in trouble. But my prayers was answered wanting my husband to go to church with me. God gave me the strength of answered prayers. Just saying. Look at me now. God is so good!!! He is still answering my prayers He will answer yours. “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the LORD. James 1:6-7} {Judges Chapter 14}

When Samson was grown, he went to a city called Timnath’ where he fell in love with a Philistine girl. She was not a Jewess, but when he returned home he told his father and mother about her and asked them to get her as his wife. His father and mother told Samson he should marry and Israeli girl, not a Philistine girl, for the Philistines were enemies of the Israelites. Besides, God had told His people not to marry non-Jews.

But Samson was not willing to give her up. He said to his father, “I want her, so get her for me.”

His father and mother went back with him to Timnath. On the way there, a young lion came roaring out at Samson, and the Lord gave him strength to kill the lion with his hands as easily as if it had been a young goat.

When Samson finally met the girl and talked with her, he wanted all the more to marry her. A wedding date was set, and he and his parents went back home. When he returned to marry her, he came to a place where he killed the lion and went over to look at it. Its body was dried up, and a swarm of bee’s was living in it, storing honey there. He took some of the honey in his hands and ate it as he walked. Afterwards he gave some to his father and mother, but he didn’t tell them he had taken it out of the dead body of the lion.

Samson gave a big party for the young men of the town, for that was one of the marriage customs of those days. Thirty Philistine youths came, and the party lasted seven days. During the party Samson decided to tell them a riddle. He promised to give each of the young men a suit if they found out what his riddle meant before the seven days of the party ended. But if they couldn’t find the answer to his riddle, then each of them must give him a suit! The Philistines boys agreed to this bet.

“Go ahead,” they said, “Tell us the riddle.”

“All right,” Samson replied, “Here it is: ‘Food came out of the eater, and sweetness came out of the strong!

{He meant that he had taken honey from the lion, and eaten it. But of course he didn’t tell the Philistines the answer because then he would lose the bet!}

For three days they tried to find the answer, but couldn’t. Finally the young men went to his bride and told her they would kill her and her whole family unless she found out the from Samson the answer to the riddle.

She knew they would kill her, so she asked Samson to tell her, but he wouldn’t. Then she started crying and saying he didn’t love her or he would tell her.

“I haven’t told my father or my mother.” Samson answered; why should I tell you?”

But she kept on begging and crying, and he finally told her just to keep her quiet. Then of course she went and told the Philistine boys.

They came to Samson on the seventh day, just before the end of the feast, and pretended they had thought up the answer by themselves.

“What is sweeter than honey?” they asked. And what is stronger than a lion? But Samson knew his wife had told them.

The Lord’s time came for Samson to begin punishing the Philistines for their cruelty to the people of Israel. The Lord had told Samson’s parents that their son would begin to free the Israelis from their slavery. That was why the Lord had made Samson strong enough to kill the young lion as easily as it it was a baby goat.

Samson went to a Philistine city called Ashkelon and killed thirty men there. He took their clothes and gave them to the men at the wedding, to fulfill his promise of a suit to each of them if they found the answer to his riddle.

Then he left his wife and returned to his own home, while she stayed with her father in Timnath.

A few months later Samson went to visit her and to take her a present. But her father wouldn’t let him in, because he had let another man marry her. Her father thought that Samson had gone away because he had decided he didn’t want her. This was why he gave her to someone else.

Samson was very angry and went out and caught three hundred foxes. He tied burning torches to their tails and let them loose in the fields and vineyards of the Philistines, setting fire to their grain, grape vines and olive trees.

“Who has done this?” the Philistines demanded. When they knew it was Samson, they killed his wife and her father.

Then Samson took revenge by fighting against the Philistines and killing several of them. Afterward he camped on the top of a high rock in the land of Israel. The Philistines went there with an army of several thousand men to capture and kill Samson. When the men of Israel saw the Philistines coming, they asked what the trouble was and why they had come.

“To get Samson,” they answered “so that we can do to him as he has done to us.”

Then three thousand men of Israel climbed on the top of the rock where Samson was to talk to him and to get him to surrender. “Don’t you know that we are slaves to the Philistines?” they asked. “Why are you acting like this?”

“I only paid them back for what they did to me.” Samson replied.

Then the men of Israel told him they had come to get him, and to give him to the Philistines. Samson let them bind him with two new ropes and they took him to the Philistines, camp.

As he came near them, the Philistines saw him and let out a great shout of joy. But at that moment the Lord gave him such strength that he broke the ropes! Samson picked up the jawbone of a donkey lying by the road and killed a thousand Philistines with it.

Afterward he was so tired he could hardly stand up. He prayed to the Lord, and the Lord opened a spring with water bubbling out; after Samson drank from it, his strength returned to him again.

He went to the city of Gaza and spent the night sleeping with a girl he had met. But this was wrong, for she was not his wife. This was a Philistine city and when the Philistines heard that Samson was there, they shut the city gates and watched all night to capture him when he found he couldn’t leave because the gates was closed, he simply pulled the gate posts out of the ground, picked up the gates, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of a nearby hill!

Questions:

What animal did Samson kill with his hands?

What riddle did Samson tell the boys at his wedding party?

How did they find out the answer to the riddle?

How did Samson light the Philistines’ fields on fire?

Why?

Judges Chapter 13 {Read on in your bible: Very interesting}

After this the people of Israel sinned again and displeased the Lord by worshipping idols. Again they became slaves, this time to the Philistines for forty years,
A man named Manoah and his wife were among those who still worshipped the Lord, but they were sad because they had no children. One day the Angel of the Lord came and told Manoah’s wife that she and Manoah would have a son. The Angel of the Lord said their son was set apart for God and must never drink wine or whiskey and must never have his hair cut. The son was grown, he would free Israel from the Palestine’s.

The woman ran and told her husband that a prophet had spoken to her, for she did not realize he was an angel. Then Manoah prayed. “Lord, let the prophet come again and teach us how to raise the child You are going to give us.”

The Lord heard Manoah’s prayer, and the Angel came again to the woman as she was out in the field. She ran to her husband and told him the man had come again. Manoah went with his wife and said to him,

“Are you the man of God who was talking to my wife?”

“I am,” he said.

Then Manoah asked him. “How shall we raise raise the child you have promised us\?”

The angel answered. “Be sure to do everything I told your wife before .”

Manoah begged the Angel to stay and eat with them, for they still didn’t know it was an angel. But the Angel said, “Even if I stay I will not eat your food.”

Then Manoah said, “Tell us your name so that we can honor you when the child is born as you have promised us.”

The Angel answered, “Why do you ask my name? It is a secret.”

Then Manoah took a young goat as a burnt offering and sacrificed it upon a rock. The Angel did a wonderful thing as the fire was burning on the rock, its flame and disappeared! When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell flat upon the ground in worship.

Manoah was frightened. “We have seen God.” he said for he believed the Angel was the Lord. “We shall surely die because we have seen Him.”

But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had intended to kill us, He wouldn’t have accepted our burnt offering nor promised us a son.”

A few months later, God gave Manoah and his wife the son He had promised them, and they named him Sampson. As the child grew, the Lord was kind to him and blessed him.

Questions:

What happy news did the Angel tell Manoah and his wife?

What would be special about their son?

Who was the Angel?

Read: Jephthah’s story in Judges 11:1-40 & 12:7-15 & 1 Samuel 12:11 & Hebrews 11:32.

The Ammonites came to attack Israel again and were camped in the land of Gilead, on the other side of organized and army, too, but they had no leader; they needed a general to tell them what to do.

One of the Israelis, named Jephthah, was great and brave soldier, but the men of Israel had been unkind to him, so he had moved away to another country. But when the people wanted a man to lead them against their enemies, they remembered Jephthah. The elders of Israel went to him in the land of Tob, and said, “Come and be the general of our army.”

Jephthah answered, “You hated me and sent me away. Why come to me now when you are in trouble?” But the elders promised before the Lord that they would make him their king if he won the war for them. So Jephthah went with them.

He sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, asking him why he had come to fight. The king answered that hundreds of years before, the Israelis had taken away his land when they came up out of Egypt. “Give me back my land,” he said.

But Jephthah sent messengers to say that the land they had taken was given to them by the Lord, and they were going to keep it. Then Jephthah and the men of Israel went out to fight the Ammonite army.

Before the battle, Jephthah made a promise that if the Lord would give him the victory, he would offer up as a burnt offering whatever came out of his door to meet him when he returned home from the battle. Jephthah did wrong in making such a promise, for he had no idea who or what might come to meet him.

When he led his troops against the Ammonites, the Lord gave him the victory, so the Israelis were free from their slavery again. When the battle was over. Jephthah returned to his home. His daughter, his only child, came running out to meet him, full of joy at seeing her father again.

Can you imagine how Jephthah felt? He tore his clothes in his sorrow and finally told her of his promise.

She said, “Father, if you have made a vow to the Lord, do to me as you have said.”

Jephthah should not have kept his wicked promise. God had commanded the Israelis to sacrifice oxen, goats, and lambs as burnt offerings. God had said never to sacrifice their children; this was what heathen nations did and were punished for doing.

Jephthah should have repented of his promise and asked God’s forgiveness but instead, he kept his evil promise.

Questions:

How did Jephthah get to be the leader of Israel?

What awful promise did Jephthah make to God?

What happened afterwards?

Rejection is not the end. With humility and trust in God, we can come back. We should never let our pride get in the way of serving God. Jephthah made a rash vow that God did not require, and it cost him dearly. Samuel, the last of the judges, later said, “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

1 Samuel 15:22

Judges 8:28-35, Chapter 9, Chapter 10

As soon as Gideon was dead, the Israelis promptly forgot about the Lord. They turned away from God again, and worshipped the idol Baal.

Gideon’s son Abimelech was king of the city of Shechem, but his friends wanted him to be king over all of Israel instead of just one city. They gave him seventy pieces of silver taken from the temple of Baal, and he used the money to hire men to go with him and help him.

First he killed all of his brothers except the youngest, who ran away Abimelech did this because he was afraid the people might become tired of him and ask one of his brothers to be king instead. So he became the king of all the land of Israel.

After Abimelech had been king for three years, God sent him trouble. Instead of being his friends any lounger, the people of Shechem became his enemies. While he was away on a trip, they decided to kill him.

The governor of the city, who was still Abimelech’s friend, sent him this secret message: “Be careful. The people of Shechem have rebelled against you. Come in the night with your men, and hide out in the field until morning. As soon as the sun is up, march toward the city; and when the people come out to fight you, you can defeat them.”

So Abimelech did this. He brought his men to the city during the night and hid them in the fields near the city. In the morning the people saw him and came out to fight, but he chased them back into the city and killed many of them.

The next morning they came out again. This time Abimelech divided his men into three groups and hid them in the field. As soon as the men of Shechem had gone quite far from the city gate, one of Abimelech’s groups ran behind them and stood in front of the gate to prevent the men of Shechem from getting back into their city. Then the two other groups ran toward them from the field and killed them. Abimelech and his men fought against the city all day, until all the people were killed, their houses knocked apart, and the city completely destroyed.

Some of the men of Shechem escaped to the temple of their idol Baal and barred the heavy gates so that Abimelech couldn’t get to them. He led his troops up a mountain and cut off large branches from the trees., then returned to the temple. They piled the branches against the door and set them on fire, burning up the temple and all the people inside.

Then Abimelech went to the city of Thebez, fought against it, and captured it. The people who lived there fled into a strong tower, locked the door, and climbed to its top. Abimelech tried to burn the tower as he had the idol temple in Shechem, but a woman threw down a huge rock from the top of the tower. It hit him on the head, crushing his skull.

When he knew he was dying, he called one of his young men and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me so it won’t be said I was killed by a woman.”

The youth thrust his sword through Abimelech, and he died. In this way God punished Abimelech for killing his brothers and also punished the people of Shechem for helping him to do it.

After Abimelech was dead. Tola was the judge of Israel for twenty three years.

After him, Jair, who lived across the Jordan River in the land of Gilead, was judge for twenty two years. He had thirty sons, and each of them was the governor of a city in Gilead.

Then the people of Israel turned away from the Lord again and worshipped Baal and Ashtaroth, the same idols their fathers had worshipped. So this time when the Philistines attacked Israel, the Lord didn’t help His people. They became slaves again for eighteen years.

In their trouble they cried out to the Lord for help; but He reminded them of how often He had set them free from their enemies, only to see them turn their backs on Him again and worship heathen idols. Let them go to the idols they had chosen. He said, and ask them for help. But the people of Israel confessed their sins and asked God to punish them, but please to set them free from their enemies. They destroyed the idols they had worshipped, and worshipped the Lord again; and He pitied them in their sufferings.

Questions:

Who was Abimelech’sfather?

Why did God send trouble to Abimelech?

How did Abimelech die?

Thanks for reading. Have a awesome day full of blessings and joy.

Judges Chapters 6&7&8-VS- 1-27

Soon a great army of Midianites arrived and camped in the valley of Jezreel. Gideon blew a trumpet and called the men of Israel to go with him and fight them.

Gideon asked God to do a miracle to prove to him that it was really God who had promised to help him when he went to fight against the Midianites. This is the miracle Gideon asked God to do. Gideon said he would leave some wool out on the ground all night. In the morning, if the wool was wet with dew and the ground all around it was dry, this would be a miracle and he would know that the Lord was going to help him in his fight to free the people of Israel.

So Gideon left the wool on the ground all night. Early the next morning he went outside and found it full of water. He wrung the dew out of it with his hands and filled a bowl with the water, but the ground all around was dry! Why wasn’t the ground wet too? You see, it was a miracle.

Then Gideon asked the Lord for permission to try it again; but this time he asked God to make the ground wet with dew and to let the wool stay dry! God agreed, so Gideon left the wool out another night, and in the morning the wool was perfectly dry, but the ground all around was wet.

Gideon knew by these miracles that the Lord would certainly help him when he went out to fight against the Midianites. Gideon’s little army got up early in the morning and started towards the vast army of Midian. But the Lord told Gideon that his little army was to big!

“Send some of your men home,” God said, “Tell anyone who is afraid to eave.”

When Gideon told his men this, twenty-two thousand of them went home, while ten-thousand stayed.

“There are still to many!” the Lord said. “Bring them down to the river and I will choose the ones I want in the battle.”

{God told Gideon to send his soldiers home except for three hundred of them who drank from their hands. God would use these three-hundred to defeat a vast enemy army.}

So Gideon brought them to the river. All the men were thirsty and began to drink. Some lifted the water to their mouths in their hands, and some stooped down and put their hands, and some stooped down and put their mouths into the water. The Lord said that only the ones who drank from their hands (There were three hundred of them) could go with him to the battle!

Gideon was afraid to go with so few, but the Lord told him to take one of his soldiers and creep over to the camp of the enemy through the darkness to listen to what they were saying.

The Midianites were as thick as grasshoppers in the valley below, and they had so many camels it was hard to count them. That night Gideon and another man crept down to their camp and listened outside one of the tents where two Midianites soldiers were talking. One was telling the other about a dream he had.

“In my dream,” He said, “I saw a loaf of bread come tumbling into our camp; it struck against a tent and it knocked down flat on the ground!”

And the other man said, “Your dream means that the Lord is going to give Gideon a great victory over us!”

When Gideon heard this he went back to get the three hundred men. He told them to get up and come with him, for the Lord would give them the victory. He put them in three different groups and gave each man a trumpet and a pitcher with a lighted lamp inside. He told them that when they came to the camp of the Midianites, they must do exactly as he did. When he blew his trumpet, they must all blow theirs and shout, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!”

In the middle of the night he and his three hundred men arrived in the camp of the Midianites . Suddenly he and all of his men blew their trumpets and broke the pichers and shouted, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!”

When the Midianites heard the noise and saw the burning lamps that had been hidden in the pitchers, they yelled in fear and ran for their lives. The Lord made them afraid both of the men of Israel and of each other, too, so that they were killing and fighting one another all over the valley.

Gideon and his men chased them as they fled across the Jordan River. The two kings of the Midianites raced ahead of him with fifteen thousand soldiers. But he caught up with them and overcame them and took the two kings captive.

So the Midianites were driven out of Canaan, and the people of Israel were no longer their slaves.

Gideon was the judge of Israel for forty years. God gave him many sons, and he lived to be an old man.

Questions:

What two miracles did God do with Gideon’s wool?

How did the Lord decide which men should be Gideon’s army?

How did Gideon’s tiny army defeat the huge Midianite army?

Have a fabulous day full of blessings.

Judges chapters 1-5

Shamgar was the next judge of Israel. He led his people against the Philistines; and all by himself, with nothing but a sharp stick and the Lord’s help, he killed six hundred of the enemy.

But when the people of Israel began to worship idols again, God let them be conquered again. This time they were slaves for twenty long years. Then the Lord gave them another judge to help them in their troubles. This judge was a woman named Deborah. She lived near Bethel in a house beneath a palm tree.

Deborah sent for a man named Barak and told him that the Lord wanted him to lead ten thousand Israeli soldiers against Sisera, the captain of the enemy army. But Barak was afraid and wouldn’t go unless Deborah went with him. Deborah said she would, but that the honor of the victory would go to a woman!

So Barak and Deborah led the ten thousand men of Israel against Sisera. Sisera called up all his reserves , including nine hundred iron chariots, and came out to fight. But the Lord gave Israel the victory.

Sisera jumped from his chariot and ran away to the tent of a woman named Jael. He didn’t know she was a friend of the people of Israel. “Give me a little water,” he begged her, “for I am very thirsty.” So she gave him some milk to drink.

“Stand in the door of your tent,” he told her, “and if anyone comes by and asks if you have seen me, tell him no.”

He was so tired that he lay down and slept. Jael took a sharp tent peg that was used to fasten the tent to the ground, went quietly over to him, and drove it into his head with a hammer, killing him.

Soon afterwards Barak came by looking for Sisera. Jael went out to meet him and said, “Come here, and I will show you the man you are looking for.” Then she took him into the tent, and there lay Sisera, dead.

So the Israelis were freed from the king of Canaan that day.

But after forty years of freedom, the people of Israel began worshipping idols again. Then the Midianites came and fought them, and made slaves of them and treated them very cruelly. They drove the Israelis from their homes, making them live in dens and caves in the mountains. They destroyed their crops, leaving little for the Israelis to eat. And they took their oxen, goats, and sheep, so that the people of Israel grew very poor and hungry.

Then, as they had before, the Israelis cried to the Lord to help them. The judge the Lord sent this time was Gideon.

Gideon was threshing wheat one day and trying to hide it from the Midianites, when the Lord came to him in the form of an angel and spoke kindly to him. Then Gideon told the Lord about the troubles the people of Israel were having because of the Midianites.

“You will free the people of Israel from the Midianites!” the Lord told him.

“But, Lord, how can I do that?” Gideon asked.

“That’s easy!” the Lord replied, “I will be with you, and you will destroy their whole army as if it were it was only one man!”

Then Gideon said to the Lord, “Please wait here while I go and get an animal to sacrifice to You.”

So Gideon went and killed a young goat, cut it up, put the meat into a basket, and brought it out to the Lord. The Lord told Gideon to lay it on a rock; then He touched the meat with the end of a stick He had in His hand, and fire flamed out of the rock and burned the sacrifice! Then the Lord disappeared.

Questions:

Why did God let His people become slaves again?

What was the name of the first woman to lead and judge Israel?

When Gideon sacrificed the goat, what happened?

Have a awesome and blessed day.

After Joshua’s death, the Israeli army continued to fight the heathen nations as the Lord had told them to; and God helped them and made them Victorious. But they stopped fighting before they had driven out all the nations of Canaan; they allowed some of the heathen nations to stay.

Then the Lord said to the people of Israel, “I brought you out of Egypt into this land I promised you. I commanded you to destroy the idols of the nations living here, and I told you never to make peace with them. But you have not obeyed me. Now I will not help you anymore. The rest of the nations shall stay, and they will tempt you to sin and cause you great trouble.”

The people of Israel wept when they heard this. But they soon forgot what the Lord had said, for they not only allowed many of the heathen to stay in Canaan, but they treated them as their friends. They even married them; the young men of Israel took heathen girls for their wives, and the Israeli girls were permitted to marry heathen men.

Then the people of Israel began worshipping idols named Baal and Ashtaroth, who were the gods of the people of Canaan. The Lord was very angry about this and sent enemies to fight against His people and to make them their slaves.

But when they turned away from the idols and turned again to the Lord and asked for His help, He helped them by raising up leaders, called judges. These men helped them fight against their masters and win. Yet, as soon as the Lord set the people free, they would forget Him and sin again by worshipping idols and ignoring the Lord. This sinning and repenting continued for more than three hundred years! During that time fifteen judges were their leaders.

The first judge was Othniel; he was the younger brother of Caleb, one of the good spies. Othniel fought against the king of Mesopotamia, who had kept the Israelis as slaves for eight years. And God helped Othniel and the men of Israel conquer their master’s army, so they were free again for the next forty years.

But after Othniel was dead the people of Israel began to worship idols again. Then the king of Moab led his army against Israel and enslaved them for eighteen years. But when the people of Israel cried to the Lord for help, the Lord appointed Ehud as their leader. He was a man of the tribe of Benjamin, and was left-handed.

Ehud made a dagger, hid it under his coat, and came to the king of Moab’s palace while the king was sitting in his summer parlor.

“I have a secret message from God for you, O king.” Ehud said to him. When the kings assistants returned. they saw that the doors of his room were locked and said to themselves, “The king must want to be alone; we’d better not go in.

But after they had waited a very long time, they took a key and opened the doors and found the king lying dead on the floor.

By this time Ehud was far away, and they couldn’t find him. Ehud went to Mount Ephraim, in the land of Canaan, and blew a trumpet to call the men of Israel to him.

“Follow me,” he told them. “The king is dead, and the Lord will help you conquer the army of Moab.”

The men of Israel followed him to the Jordan River where they fought and killed ten thousand brave soldiers of Moab; not one escaped. So the Israelis were again free from the Moabites. This freedom continued for the next eighty years.

Questions:

Why didn’t God want the Israeli young people to marry non-jews?

What were the leaders of Israel now called?

Who was the first judge?

Who was his Brother?

Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Psalm 119:90

Joshua Chapter 24 & 25

Judges Chapter 1

The men of the tribes living across the Jordan River had stayed with the Israeli army ever since crossing the river and had fought against the heathen nations in Canaan. They received a full share of the cattle, gold, silver, and anything else taken from the enemy.

Joshua called these men to him and thanked them for their help. “You have obeyed me, whatever I told you to do,” he said. “You have not let your brothers fight alone, but have stayed with them and helped them. Now go back to your homes on the other side of the Jordan. But be very careful, after you get there, to obey all the commandments Moses gave us, and to love and to serve the Lord your God with all your hearts.”

So they started back home. When they came to the Jordan River, they stopped and built a great altar, shaped like God’s altar at Shiloh, where the Tabernacle was. But God had told the Israelis not to sacrifice on any other altar but the one at the Tabernacle. When the men of the other tribes heard that they had built another altar, they were angry, and sent their armies to fight them.

Phinehas, the high priest, and ten Israeli leaders arrived ahead of the army to ask why they had built this altar.

“We want to know,” they said, “why you have built another altar to offer sacrifices on, when the Lord said we should have only one altar, the one at Shiloh. Don’t you remember how God sent a great plague on us for worshipping the idols of the Midianites and the Moabites? Don’t you remember how He punished us when Achan took the silver and gold for himself, in direct disobedience to God?”

The Tribes from across the river were very surprised. They said they had never dreamed of using the altar for sacrifices. It was just a monument, in the form of the altar at Shiloh. In years to come, they said, the people on Joshua’s side of the Jordan River might say that the tribes on their side of the Jordan River weren’t really Israelis, because they didn’t live in the Promised Land of Canaan. They could then point to the Monument as proof that they were truly people of Israel, just like the others. They fully understood, they said, that there must be no sacrificing except at Shiloh.

So then everyone was happy again.

Joshua had become an old man One day he summoned the leaders of Israel and and reminded them of all the Lord had done for them and urged them always to honor God in everything they did. Then the Lord would greatly bless and prosper them, he said.

The Lord has driven out your enemies and given you cities, fields, vineyards, and a land of your own to live in, “Joshua reminded them, “Fear the Lord and worship Him. If you don’t want to worship Him, then choose the idols you would rather worship. But as for me and my family, we will worship the Lord.”

The people answered, “God forbid that we should leave the Lord to worship idols. For it was He who brought us out of Egypt and gave us this land. We will worship the Lord, for He is our God.”

Then Joshua took a great stone and set it up beneath an oak beside the Tabernacle in Shiloh. That stone, he said, would be a witness to remind them of the promises they had made to worship only the Lord.

So, Joshua died. This godly man had lived for 110 years; and they buried him on the side of a hill.

During the forty years since they had left Egypt, the Israelis had been carrying Joseph’s bones with them. Now at last they buried them at Shechem. (It had been more than four hundred years since Joseph, wearing his coat of many colors, had gone to Shechem to find his brothers.)

Questions:

Why was everyone so angry about the new altar?

Where was the only place that sacrifices could be made?

Whose bones had been brought all the way from Egypt to be buried?

How long before this had the boy Joseph looked for his brothers at Shechem?

Joshua Chapters 16 & 17 & 18

Joshua and his troops won many, many more battles against many kings, but there was still much land remaining to be conquered.

All the people of Israel went to the city of Shiloh to set up the Tabernacle there. They had carried the Tabernacle all the way from Mount Sinai, talking it down when they travelled and setting it up again when they stopped. But they had come to Canaan to stay their long journey was ended. The Tabernacle wouldn’t have to be moved again.

The priests and Levites brought the Tabernacle to Shiloh, a city near the center of their new country, and set it up permanently as the Lord had told them to.

But although Israel had conquered only part of Canaan, they had grown tired of war and wanted rest and quiet. It seemed as though they did not want all the good land God was willing to give them.

The Lord spoke to Joshua and reminded him that a large part of the land had not yet been taken away from the Canaanites. So Joshua asked all the people how long it would be before they would be ready to continue the war against the heathen nations still living in Canaan. He asked them to choose twenty-one scouts, and Joshua sent them out to inspect the land that was still unconquered. He told them to give him a written report.

The chosen men walked through the land, made maps of it, and brought their report to Joshua in Shiloh. Then Joshua drew straws for the different tribes of Israel so that the Lord could tell them which part of the land each tribe should have. God told them to finish driving out the heathen nations so that they could have the land for their own use. Joshua promised that the Lord would help His people do this.

God said that the priests and Levites were not to own farms like the men of the other tribes, because He wanted them to stay at the Tabernacle and work for God there. But God said they could have cities of their own to live in. The priests and Levites came to Joshua and the leaders of Israel to find out what cities they could have, and they were given forty-eight cities where they could bring their wives and children and have their homes.

Questions:

What was done with the Tabernacle?

Where?

Why?

Why did the scouts make maps?

Why couldn’t the priests and Levites own farms like everyone else?

Joshua Chapters 12 & 13 & 14