Judges 3:7–9

¹³But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

⁶And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.

⁹Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons;

³³And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

¹⁹Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table.

¹⁶¶ And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.

¹⁸And they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass.

¹⁹His prayer also, and how God was intreated of him, and all his sin, and his trespass, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up groves and graven images, before he was humbled: behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers.

³¶ For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.

¹⁴And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

²¹¶ Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee.

¹¹¶ And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim:

¹²And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger.

¹³And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.

¹²¶ And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord: and the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord.

²⁵¶ And it came to pass the same night, that the Lord said unto him, Take thy father’s young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it:

³¶ For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.

⁷And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.

¹⁴¶ And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.

⁷I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

⁹And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

³Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.

⁹And when they forgat the Lord their God, he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them.

²⁰The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.

³⁰How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?

²⁴And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.

¹THUS saith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.

²⁰¶ And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice;

¹O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

¹⁵But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab.

¹³And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife.

⁵They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

¹⁰¶ And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim.

⁷¶ And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites,

¹⁶¶ Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.

³And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.

¹³Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.

¹⁴He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.

¹⁵Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

¹⁶For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.

¹⁷Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted.

¹⁸Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death.

¹⁹Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses.

¹⁰And they cried unto the Lord, and said, We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord, and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth: but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve thee.

²⁷Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.

⁴¹And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them.

⁴²Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand.

⁴³Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity.

⁴⁴Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry:

³⁴When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and inquired early after God.