2
He judged Israel for twenty-three years and then died and was buried at Shamir.
3
After him, Jair the Gileadite stepped into leadership. He judged Israel for twenty-two years.
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He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys and had thirty towns in Gilead. The towns are still called Jair's Villages.
5
Jair died and was buried in Kamon.
6
And then the People of Israel went back to doing evil in God's sight. They worshiped the Baal gods and Ashtoreth goddesses: gods of Aram, Sidon, and Moab; gods of the Ammonites and the Philistines. They just walked off and left God, quit worshiping him.
7
And God exploded in hot anger at Israel and sold them off to the Philistines and Ammonites, who,
8
beginning that year, bullied and battered the People of Israel mercilessly. For eighteen years they had them under their thumb, all the People of Israel who lived east of the Jordan in the Amorite country of Gilead.
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Then the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to go to war also against Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. Israel was in a bad way!
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The People of Israel cried out to God for help: "We've sinned against you! We left our God and worshiped the Baal gods!"
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God answered the People of Israel: "When the Egyptians, Amorites, Ammonites, Philistines, Sidonians
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- even Amalek and Midian! - oppressed you and you cried out to me for help, I saved you from them.