Judges 10

After Abimelech, Tola son of Puah, son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, arose to save Israel. He lived at Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim. He judged Israel twenty-three years. Then he died and was buried at Shamir. After him arose Jair the Gileadite, who judged Israel twenty-two years. He had thirty sons who rode thirty donkey colts, and they had thirty towns in the land of Gilead, called Havvoth-jair to this day. Jair died and was buried at Kamon. The people of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD. They served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. They forsook the LORD and did not serve him. The LORD’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites. They oppressed and crushed the people of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the people of Israel who were beyond the Jordan, in the land of the Amorites in Gilead. The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight Judah, Benjamin, and the house of Ephraim, and Israel was in great distress. The people of Israel cried out to the LORD, saying, “We have sinned against you, for we have forsaken our God and served the Baals.” The LORD said to the people of Israel, “Did I not save you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, and the Philistines? The Sidonians, the Amalekites, and the Maonites also oppressed you, and you cried out to me, and I saved you from their hand. But you have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you in the time of your distress!” The people of Israel said to the LORD, “We have sinned. Do to us whatever seems good in your sight; only please deliver us this day.” They removed the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD, and he could no longer bear Israel’s misery. The Ammonites were summoned and camped in Gilead. The people of Israel gathered together and camped at Mizpah. The people and the leaders of Gilead said to one another, “Who is the man who will begin to fight the Ammonites? He will be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

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