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God’s Word on Gluttony

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Hebrews: Beyond Camp

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Breaking Free From an Abusive Marriage

All In: Living a Life of Worship

Racecar Drivers and the Bible

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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
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 <div class="chapter ch4" data-usfm="JDG.4">
 <div class="label">4</div><div class="s1">Deborah</div><div class="p"> 1Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, now that Ehud was dead. 2So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Haggoyim. 3Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.</div><div class="p"> 4Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading#4:4 Traditionally judging Israel at that time. 5She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. 6She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, &#8220;The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: &#8216;Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. 7I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin&#8217;s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 8Barak said to her, &#8220;If you go with me, I will go; but if you don&#8217;t go with me, I won&#8217;t go.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 9&#8220;Certainly I will go with you,&#8221; said Deborah. &#8220;But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.&#8221; So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh. 10There Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali, and ten thousand men went up under his command. Deborah also went up with him.</div><div class="p"> 11Now Heber the Kenite had left the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses&#8217; brother-in-law,#4:11 Or father-in-law and pitched his tent by the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.</div><div class="p"> 12When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, 13Sisera summoned from Harosheth Haggoyim to the Kishon River all his men and his nine hundred chariots fitted with iron.</div><div class="p"> 14Then Deborah said to Barak, &#8220;Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?&#8221; So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men following him. 15At Barak&#8217;s advance, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot.</div><div class="p"> 16Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim, and all Sisera&#8217;s troops fell by the sword; not a man was left. 17Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was an alliance between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite.</div><div class="p"> 18Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, &#8220;Come, my lord, come right in. Don&#8217;t be afraid.&#8221; So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.</div><div class="p"> 19&#8220;I&#8217;m thirsty,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Please give me some water.&#8221; She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.</div><div class="p"> 20&#8220;Stand in the doorway of the tent,&#8221; he told her. &#8220;If someone comes by and asks you, &#8216;Is anyone in there?&#8217; say &#8216;No.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 21But Jael, Heber&#8217;s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.</div><div class="p"> 22Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. &#8220;Come,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I will show you the man you&#8217;re looking for.&#8221; So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple&#8212;dead.</div><div class="p"> 23On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites. 24And the hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder against Jabin king of Canaan until they destroyed him.</div>
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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bkJDG">
 <div class="chapter ch6" data-usfm="JDG.6">
 <div class="label">6</div><div class="s1">Gideon</div><div class="p"> 1The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.</div><div class="p"> 7When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8he sent them a prophet, who said, &#8220;This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10I said to you, &#8216;I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.&#8217; But you have not listened to me.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 11The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, &#8220;The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 13&#8220;Pardon me, my lord,&#8221; Gideon replied, &#8220;but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, &#8216;Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?&#8217; But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 14The Lord turned to him and said, &#8220;Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian&#8217;s hand. Am I not sending you?&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 15&#8220;Pardon me, my lord,&#8221; Gideon replied, &#8220;but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 16The Lord answered, &#8220;I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 17Gideon replied, &#8220;If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.&#8221;</div><div class="p">And the Lord said, &#8220;I will wait until you return.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 19Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah#6:19 That is, probably about 36 pounds or about 16 kilograms of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.</div><div class="p"> 20The angel of God said to him, &#8220;Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.&#8221; And Gideon did so. 21Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared. 22When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, &#8220;Alas, Sovereign Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 23But the Lord said to him, &#8220;Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 24So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.</div><div class="p"> 25That same night the Lord said to him, &#8220;Take the second bull from your father&#8217;s herd, the one seven years old.#6:25 Or Take a full-grown, mature bull from your father&#8217;s herd Tear down your father&#8217;s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole#6:25 That is, a wooden symbol of the goddess Asherah; also in verses 26, 28 and 30 beside it. 26Then build a proper kind of#6:26 Or build with layers of stone an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second#6:26 Or full-grown; also in verse 28 bull as a burnt offering.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 27So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.</div><div class="p"> 28In the morning when the people of the town got up, there was Baal&#8217;s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!</div><div class="p"> 29They asked each other, &#8220;Who did this?&#8221;</div><div class="p">When they carefully investigated, they were told, &#8220;Gideon son of Joash did it.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 30The people of the town demanded of Joash, &#8220;Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal&#8217;s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 31But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, &#8220;Are you going to plead Baal&#8217;s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.&#8221; 32So because Gideon broke down Baal&#8217;s altar, they gave him the name Jerub-Baal#6:32 Jerub-Baal probably means let Baal contend. that day, saying, &#8220;Let Baal contend with him.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 33Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. 34Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. 35He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.</div><div class="p"> 36Gideon said to God, &#8220;If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised&#8212; 37look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.&#8221; 38And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew&#8212;a bowlful of water.</div><div class="p"> 39Then Gideon said to God, &#8220;Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.&#8221; 40That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.</div>
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