A verse fragment

In time, the Israelites forgot their God who delivered them from Egypt and intermarried with the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites (Judges 3:5), and worshipped their gods.

Jael, the wife of Heber, descendant of a brother-in-law of Moses, finds the Canaanite commander of Jabin’s army, Sisera, fleeing from a battle with the Israelites, lures him into a tent saying she will protect him, and then kills him while he sleeps.  This fulfills a prophecy of Deborah, judge of Israel at the time.

Part of the song of Deborah and Barak, telling of the defeat of Sisera, at the hands of a woman called Jael, who killed him in her tent, and of the help the elements provided, in making the plains impassable to chariots because of rain, a condition favoring the foot-soldiers of the Israelite army.

Gideon encourages his 300 men to arise and fight.  God told Gideon to send 31,700 fighting men back to their homes so that Godwill be glorified in the victory of a one-sided battle of 300 Israelites against the Midianite army that filled a valley.  Gideon returns from a nighttime foray to spy inside the enemy camp and has heard the enemy soldiers predict their own defeat.  Gideon returns to his own camp and wakes up his men immediately for the battle that they initiate and win with the 300 men.

Gideon explains to his enemies that those whom they killed were his loved ones.

Jotham, a rightful hier to a kingdom, climbs a hill and shouts, berating the people for following Abimelech after Abimelech has caused the murder of seventy of his brothers.  Instead of following God, the people choose evil men to lead them, which is as foolish as a tree choosing to live in the shade of a bush.  The reign of Abimelech is short and he dies violently.  Jotham assumes the reign at the age of 25 and rules for 16 years.

The children of God temporarily repent of their departure from him.

The elders of Gilead entreat Jephthah, illegitimate and outcast son of Gilead, to save them from their enemies.  He asks to bemade their head.  In this verse the desperate elders extend their pledge to him.  Jephthah is successful.

Jephthah’s daughter, his only child, understands that her father has pledged to offer her as a gift dedicated to God, who will never marry, and asks for time to mourn this fact.  Jephthah consents.  She keeps her promise and spends two months in the hills mourning with her female companions, and returns.