The Story of the Chosen People (Yesterday's Classics) by H. A. Guerber

not discovered till Ehud had escaped. He at once rallied the Children of Israel around him, led them on to battle, and completely routed the Moabites.
    Shamgar, the next judge, delivered the Israelites from the hands of the Philistines, and showed his unusual strength by killing six hundred of his foes with an ordinary oxgoad.
    As the people had fallen back into idolatry, they were next given over to the cruel treatment of the King of the Canaanites, who allowed his captain, Sisera, to oppress the land for twenty years. At the end of that time, the Lord sent a woman named Deborah to the rescue of his people. This Deborah was a prophetess, and as she herself could not go forth and fight, she sent Barak, the fourth judge, against the enemy.
    The two armies met, and once more the Israelites won a great victory. They owed this victory in part to a great storm, which injured the troops of Sisera only. Terrified by the fury of the elements leagued against them, Sisera's soldiers fled, but they were soon overtaken and killed by the Israelites.
    Sisera, the captain, escaped alone and on foot, and finally took refuge in the tent of a woman named Jael. There he was given a drink of milk, and after telling the woman to keep his hiding place secret, he lay down and went to sleep.
    While he thus thought himself safe, Jael armed herself with a tent pin and a hammer, crept up close to her sleeping guest, and with one terrible blow drove the pin right through his temples and deep into the ground. Then she ran to meet the pursuing host, and, leading Barak into her tent, showed him what she had done. The Israelites had again won the victory, and the history of this epoch closes with Deborah's song of triumph, in which she relates how Sisera was defeated and slain.

CHAPTER XXVI
Ruth and Naomi
    W E are told that not very long after the death of Sisera, an Israelite named Micah stole eleven hundred shekels of silver from his mother. She, little suspecting that the thief was her own son, cursed the robber, and solemnly vowed to make a molten and a graven image, should she ever recover her property.
    Oppressed by remorse for his guilt, Micah finally confessed his theft. He gave back the silver, and helped his mother set up the images in his house, where one of his sons acted as priest.
    Still, as the priesthood had been strictly confined to the family of Levi, Micah was not satisfied with this arrangement. He knew no rest until he had secured the services of a young Levite, who, for a certain hire, promised to serve as priest to the images, although he knew that it was against the law.
    Five spies from the tribe of Dan paused at Micah's house, when on their way to Laish, and there consulted the Levite. As he predicted that they would be successful, the Danites rewarded him by taking him and the images with them to Laish. They soon became masters of that city, and changed its name to Dan; and then the Levite was established there as their priest.
    Another episode belonging to this epoch, is the story of a Levite, who, deserted by his wife, followed her to her father's house, and prevailed upon her to return to him. They set out upon their homeward journey late in the day, and were forced to spend the night at Gibeah, where an old man entertained them hospitably in his own house.
    Now the people of Gibeah belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, but they had grown as wicked as the Sodomites of old. They no sooner heard that there were helpless strangers in the city, than they attacked the house and forced the old man to give up the woman. Then they ill-treated her so shamefully that, when morning came, the Levite found her dead on the doorstep.
    This crime roused her husband's wrath to such an extent that he cut her body into twelve pieces, and sent them to the twelve tribes of Israel, with a full account of the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of the Benjamites.
    The result was a general uprising of the people, who sallied forth four hundred thousand