Tola

1After Abimelech, a leader rose up in Israel, Tola, the son of Puah, the paternal uncle of Abimelech, a man of Issachar, who lived in Shamir on mount Ephraim. 2And he judged Israel for twenty-three years, and he died and was buried at Shamir.

Jair

3After him succeeded Jair, a Gileadite, who judged Israel for twenty-two years, 4having thirty sons sitting upon thirty young donkeys, and who were leaders of thirty cities, which from his name were called Havvoth Jair, that is, the towns of Jair, even to the present day, in the land of Gilead. 5And Jair died, and he was buried in the place which is called Kamon.

Oppression by the Philistines and Ammonites

6But the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, joining new sins to old, and they served idols, the Baals and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria and Sidon, and of Moab and the sons of Ammon, and the Philistines. And they abandoned the Lord, and they did not worship him. 7And the Lord, becoming angry against them, delivered them into the hands of the Philistines and the sons of Ammon. 8And they were afflicted and vehemently oppressed for eighteen years, all who were living beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorite, which is in Gilead, 9to such a great extent that the sons of Ammon, crossing over the Jordan, laid waste to Judah and Benjamin and Ephraim. And Israel was exceedingly afflicted.

10And crying out to the Lord, they said: “We have sinned against you. For we have forsaken the Lord our God, and we have served the Baals.” 11And the Lord said to them: “Did not the Egyptians, and the Amorites, and the sons of Ammon, and the Philistines, 12and also the Sidonians, and Amalek, and Canaan, oppress you, and so you cried out to me, and I rescued you from their hand? 13And yet you have forsaken me, and you have worshipped foreign gods. For this reason, I will not continue to free you any more. 14Go, and call upon the gods whom you have chosen. Let them free you in the time of anguish.” 15And the sons of Israel said to the Lord: “We have sinned. You may repay us in whatever way pleases you. Yet free us now.” 16And saying these things, they cast out all the idols of the foreign gods from their regions, and they served the Lord God. And he was touched by their miseries.

17And then the sons of Ammon, shouting out together, pitched their tents in Gilead. And the sons of Israel gathered together against them, and they made camp at Mizpah. 18And the leaders of Gilead said to one another, “Whoever among us will be the first to begin to contend against the sons of Ammon, he shall be the leader of the people of Gilead.”