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Judges 10
10. TOLA
JEPHTHAH AND THE LESSER JUDGES
1 After Abimelech, Tola son of Puah, son of Dodo, rose to deliver Israel. He belonged to Issachar and lived at Shamir in the mountain country of Ephraim.
2 He was judge in Israel for twenty-three years; then he died and was buried at Shamir.
3 After him rose Jair of Gilead, who judged Israel for twenty-two years.
4 He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys’ colts; and they possessed thirty towns, which are still called the Encampments of Jair, in the land of Gilead.
5 Then Jair died and was buried at Kamon.
Oppression by the Ammonites
6 Again the Israelites began to do what displeases Yahweh. They served the Baals and the Astartes, and the gods of Aram and Sidon, the gods of Moab and those of the Ammonites and Philistines. They deserted Yahweh and served him no more.
7 Then Yahweh’s anger flamed out against Israel and he gave them over into the power of the Philistines and the power of the Ammonites,
8 who from that year onward crushed and oppressed the men of Israel for eighteen years – all the Israelites who lived beyond the Jordan, in the Amorite country in Gilead.
9 The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight Judah, Benjamin and the House of Ephraim, and Israel’s distress was very great.
10 Then the Israelites cried to Yahweh and said, ‘We have sinned against you, because we have turned from Yahweh our God to serve the Baals’.
11 And Yahweh said to the Israelites, ‘When the Egyptians and the Amorites, the Ammonites and the Philistines,
12 the Sidonians and Amalek and Midian oppressed you and you cried to me, did I not rescue you from their power?
13 But you on your part have turned from me and served other gods; and so I shall rescue you no more.
14 Go and cry to the gods you have chosen. Let them rescue you in your time of trouble.’
15 The Israelites answered Yahweh, ‘We have sinned. Do with us as you think fit; only do rescue us today.’
16 They got rid of the foreign gods that they had, and served Yahweh, and he could bear Israel’s suffering no longer.
17 The Ammonites mustered and pitched their camp in Gilead. The Israelites rallied and camped at Mizpah.
18 Then the people, the chieftains of Gilead, said to each other, ‘Who will volunteer to fight the sons of Ammon? He shall be made leader of all the inhabitants of Gilead.’