21 chapters. Pick a chapter, then pick a grade.
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After Joshua dies, Israel asks God who should go first to fight the Canaanites. God sends Judah, and Judah takes many cities. Caleb gives his daughter Achsah to Othniel, and she asks for springs of water. But many tribes do not drive out the Canaanites and let them live among them.
The angel of Yahweh tells Israel they broke His covenant, and the people weep at Bochim. After Joshua and his generation die, a new generation does not know Yahweh. They serve the Baals, God lets enemies oppress them, and when they groan He raises up judges to save them. But each time the judge dies, they turn back to sin.
God leaves some nations in the land to test Israel. When Israel serves the king of Mesopotamia, God raises up Othniel to save them. Later Moab rules over them, and God sends Ehud, a left-handed man, who defeats Eglon king of Moab. Then Shamgar saves Israel from the Philistines.
Jabin king of Canaan and his captain Sisera, with nine hundred chariots of iron, oppress Israel for twenty years. Deborah, a prophetess who judges Israel under a palm tree, calls Barak to lead ten thousand men to Mount Tabor. Barak will go only if Deborah goes, so the honor goes to a woman. Yahweh routs Sisera's army, and Sisera flees to the tent of Jael, who kills him while he sleeps.
Deborah and Barak sing a song of praise to Yahweh for the victory over Sisera. They tell how the land was in danger, how God came with power, how some tribes came to fight and some stayed home, and how even the stars and the river Kishon fought for Israel. The song ends with a prayer that those who love God will shine like the rising sun, and the land has rest forty years.
Midian oppresses Israel for seven years, stealing their crops and animals. Yahweh's angel finds Gideon beating out wheat in a wine press and calls him a mighty man of valor. Gideon builds an altar called Yahweh is Peace, tears down his father's altar to Baal at night, and asks God for signs with a fleece of wool.
God tells Gideon he has too many soldiers, so Israel cannot boast that they saved themselves. God sends home the afraid, then keeps only three hundred men who lapped water. Gideon hears a Midianite tell a dream about a loaf of barley bread knocking over a tent. At night the three hundred blow trumpets, break their pitchers, hold up torches, and shout, and God makes the Midianite army run.
Gideon answers the angry men of Ephraim gently. He chases the kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and the towns of Succoth and Penuel refuse to give his tired men bread. After the victory Israel asks Gideon to rule over them, but he says Yahweh will rule over them. Yet Gideon makes a gold ephod that becomes a snare, and after he dies Israel turns back to Baal.
Gideon's son Abimelech gets the men of Shechem to make him king and kills his seventy brothers, but the youngest, Jotham, hides. Jotham tells a story about trees asking the olive, fig, and vine to be king, and finally the bramble. Abimelech rules three years until God sends trouble between him and Shechem. He destroys Shechem, but at Thebez a woman drops a millstone on his head, and God repays his wickedness.
Tola and Jair judge Israel for many years. Then Israel serves the gods of many nations, and the Philistines and Ammonites crush them for eighteen years. Israel cries to Yahweh and confesses their sin. God tells them to cry to the gods they chose, but they put away their foreign gods and serve Yahweh, and His soul is grieved for Israel's misery.
Jephthah, a mighty man of valor, is driven out by his half-brothers. When Ammon attacks, the elders of Gilead ask him to lead them. Jephthah sends messages to the king of Ammon retelling Israel's history and asks Yahweh the Judge to judge between them. Before the battle he makes a rash vow. God gives victory, and his only daughter comes out to meet him; the vow brings great grief, and Israel's daughters remember her every year.
The men of Ephraim threaten Jephthah for not calling them to the battle. Jephthah explains that he called them and they did not come, and that Yahweh gave the victory. Fighting breaks out, and the Gileadites test fleeing men with the word Shibboleth. Jephthah judges six years. Then Ibzan of Bethlehem, Elon the Zebulunite, and Abdon the Pirathonite each judge Israel.
Israel does evil, and the Philistines rule them forty years. Yahweh's angel appears to Manoah's wife, who has no children, and promises a son who will be a Nazirite from the womb, with no razor on his head, and who will begin to save Israel. Manoah prays for the angel to come again. The angel goes up in the altar flame. The woman bears Samson, the child grows, and Yahweh blesses him.
Samson wants to marry a Philistine woman from Timnah. On the way, Yahweh's Spirit comes on him and he tears apart a young lion with his bare hands. Later he finds bees and honey in the lion's body. At his wedding feast he tells thirty companions a riddle: Out of the eater came out food; out of the strong came out sweetness. They pressure his wife to get the answer, and the feast ends in anger.
Samson finds his wife given to another man and takes revenge on the Philistines by tying foxes together with torches and burning their grain. The Philistines strike back, and the men of Judah tie Samson up to hand him over. At Lehi, Yahweh's Spirit comes on him, the ropes fall off, and he strikes a thousand men with a donkey's jawbone. Very thirsty, he calls on Yahweh, and God splits the hollow place so water comes out at En Hakkore.
Samson carries off the city gates of Gaza. He loves Delilah, and the Philistine lords pay her to find the secret of his strength. Three times he lies to her, but at last he tells her all his heart. His hair is shaved, Yahweh departs from him, and the Philistines take him captive. In prison his hair begins to grow again. At Dagon's feast, Samson prays, Lord Yahweh, remember me, and pushes the pillars so the house falls.
Micah steals eleven hundred pieces of silver from his mother, then gives it back. His mother has some of it made into a carved image. Micah sets up a house of gods and an ephod and hires a wandering Levite from Bethlehem as his own priest, thinking Yahweh will now do good to him. The chapter explains: In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.
The tribe of Dan looks for land and sends five spies, who meet Micah's Levite. Later six hundred armed Danites take Micah's carved image, ephod, and teraphim, and persuade the Levite to become priest to a whole tribe. Micah protests but cannot stop them. The Danites attack the quiet city of Laish, rename it Dan, and set up the carved image there.
A Levite goes to Bethlehem to bring back his concubine. On the way home, no one in Gibeah of Benjamin takes them in, until an old man welcomes them and says, Don't sleep in the street. Wicked men of the city surround the house. The Levite pushes his concubine outside, and the men abuse her all night. In the morning she lies at the door and does not answer. The Levite sends her body in twelve pieces through Israel, and all who see it say such a deed had never been done since Egypt.
All Israel gathers as one man at Mizpah and hears the Levite's account. They ask Benjamin to hand over the wicked men of Gibeah, but Benjamin refuses and gathers for war. Israel asks counsel of God, and twice Benjamin wins. Israel weeps, fasts, and offers sacrifices before Yahweh at Bethel, where the ark is. God says, Go up, and on the third day Benjamin is defeated; only six hundred men escape to the rock of Rimmon.
After the war, Israel weeps at Bethel because one tribe is nearly lost. They had sworn not to give their daughters to Benjamin as wives, so they search for other ways to provide wives. They strike Jabesh Gilead, which had not come to Mizpah, and bring four hundred young women. Then they tell the remaining Benjamites to catch wives from the daughters of Shiloh who come out to dance. The book ends: In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.