Judges 13:1

Also to you, Lord, belongs loving kindness, for you reward every man according to his work.

Be strong and behave like men, O you Philistines, that you not be servants to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Strengthen yourselves like men, and fight!”

Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you are returning to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

So the Philistines were subdued, and they stopped coming within the border of Israel. Yahweh’s hand was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.

Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them, and will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.

For it was of Yahweh to harden their hearts, to come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them, that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as Yahweh commanded Moses.

The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals.

They abandoned Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.

The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and Yahweh strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight.

Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles.

Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the children of Ammon.

Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in Etam’s rock, and said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” He said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”

He judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

It was so, that after they had carried it there, Yahweh’s hand was against the city with a very great confusion; and he struck the men of the city, both small and great, so that tumors broke out on them.

For the work of a man he will render to him, and cause every man to find according to his ways.

We grope for the wall like the blind. Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Among those who are strong, we are like dead men.

“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”

Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves commiting iniquity.

“I, Yahweh, search the mind. I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”

They intend to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they each tell his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal.

great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings;

For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will render to everyone according to his deeds.

Watch! Stand firm in the faith! Be courageous! Be strong!

but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherah poles;

“Be strong and courageous; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

But when the judge was dead, they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down to them. They didn’t cease what they were doing, or give up their stubborn ways.

for, behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son. No razor shall come on his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb. He shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”

But his father and his mother didn’t know that it was of Yahweh; for he sought an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.

Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down and took him, and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burial site of Manoah his father. He judged Israel twenty years.

“But they forgot Yahweh their God; and he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab; and they fought against them.

Be courageous, and let’s be strong for our people, and for the cities of our God; and may Yahweh do what seems good to him.”

So the king didn’t listen to the people; for it was a thing brought about from Yahweh, that he might establish his word, which Yahweh spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.

They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night.

For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me,” says the Lord Yahweh.

“ ‘ “Syria was your merchant by reason of the multitude of your handiworks. They traded for your wares with emeralds, purple, embroidered work, fine linen, coral, and rubies.

I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me,” says Yahweh.

I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works.

“Behold, I come quickly. My reward is with me, to repay to each man according to his work.

She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.

She bore a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, “I have lived as a foreigner in a foreign land.”

But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you.

You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you.

Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth.

The children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.

That same night, Yahweh said to him, “Take your father’s bull, even the second bull seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is by it.

They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

He restored the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, then his mother said, “I most certainly dedicate the silver to Yahweh from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a molten image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.”

The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

Micah consecrated the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah.

The children of Dan set up for themselves the engraved image; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land.

They cried to Yahweh, and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have forsaken Yahweh, and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth: but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve you.’

But if you will not listen to Yahweh’s voice, but rebel against the commandment of Yahweh, then Yahweh’s hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.

For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the mountain that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the children of Ammon.

because that they have forsaken me, and have worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon. They have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in my eyes, and to keep my statutes and my ordinances, as David his father did.

As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him.

“Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I will bring evil on this place, and on its inhabitants, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read.

But after they had rest, they did evil again before you; therefore you left them in the hands of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them; yet when they returned, and cried to you, you heard from heaven; and many times you delivered them according to your mercies,

If you say, “Behold, we didn’t know this,” doesn’t he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, doesn’t he know it? Shall he not render to every man according to his work?

Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with grain, yet his foolishness will not be removed from him.

Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

According to their deeds, he will repay as appropriate, wrath to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; he will repay the islands their due.

“I have struck your children in vain. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’ ”

Even their children remember their altars and their Asherah poles by the green trees on the high hills.

The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?

I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. I judged them according to their way and according to their deeds.

Then the presidents and the local governors sought to find occasion against Daniel as touching the kingdom; but they could find no occasion or fault, because he was faithful. There wasn’t any error or fault found in him.

In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’ ”

I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction. The dwellings of the land of Midian trembled.

Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into God’s Kingdom.”

Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.

I will kill her children with Death, and all the assemblies will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.

So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Abimelech rose up with Phicol, the captain of his army, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.

It shall happen that as all the good things have come on you of which Yahweh your God spoke to you, so Yahweh will bring on you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you,

The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth.

The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, when Ehud was dead.

The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, so Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.

The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. They abandoned Yahweh, and didn’t serve him.

According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, in that they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so they also do to you.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil.

who “will pay back to everyone according to their works:”