Judges 1:1-16

Judah and Simeon Capture Adoni-bezek

1¹ Now after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel made request to the Lord, saying, Who is to go up first to make war for us against the Canaanites? ² And the Lord said, Judah is to go up: see, I have given the land into his hands. ³ Then Judah said to Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my heritage, so that we may make war against the Canaanites; and I will then go with you into your heritage. So Simeon went with him. ⁴ And Judah went up; and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands; and they overcame ten thousand of them in Bezek. ⁵ And they came across Adoni-zedek, and made war on him; and they overcame the Canaanites and the Perizzites. ⁶ But Adoni-zedek went in flight; and they went after him and overtook him, and had his thumbs and his great toes cut off. ⁷ And Adoni-zedek said, Seventy kings, whose thumbs and great toes had been cut off, got broken meat under my table: as I have done, so has God done to me in full. And they took him to Jerusalem, and he came to his end there.

Judah Conquers Jerusalem and Hebron

⁸ Then the children of Judah made an attack on Jerusalem, and took it, burning down the town after they had put its people to the sword without mercy.

⁹ After that the children of Judah went down to make war on the Canaanites living in the hill-country and in the south and in the lowlands. ¹⁰ And Caleb went against the Canaanites of Hebron: (now in earlier times Hebron was named Kiriath-arba:) and he put Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai to the sword.

Othniel Conquers Debir and Receives Achsah

¹¹ And from there he went up against the people of Debir. (Now the name of Debir in earlier times was Kiriath-sepher.) ¹² And Caleb said, I will give Achsah, my daughter, as wife to the man who overcomes Kiriath-sepher and takes it. ¹³ And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah for his wife. ¹⁴ Now when she came to him, he put into her mind the idea of requesting a field from her father: and she got down from her ass; and Caleb said to her, What is it? ¹⁵ And she said to him, Give me a blessing; because you have put me in a dry south-land, now give me springs of water. So Caleb gave her the higher spring and the lower spring.

The Extent of the Conquests of Judah and Benjamin

¹⁶ Now Hobab the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, had come up out of the town of palm-trees, with the children of Judah, into the waste land of Arad; and he went and was living among the Amalekites;