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Judges: Verse by Verse
Judges tells how Israel lived between Joshua and the kings: a cycle of drifting from the Lord, oppression, crying out, and a deliverer raised up by God. The class studied the book one section at a time from July to November 2025.
Lessons, in order
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Introduction to Judges
July 27, 2025
Who were the judges, why did Israel keep falling, and what does the book teach us before the kings arrive?
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Judges 1: Beginning to Drift
August 3, 2025
After Joshua's death Israel begins well under Judah, then settles for partial obedience, and the drift begins.
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Judges 2: From Covenant to Chaos
August 10, 2025
The angel of the Lord confronts Israel at Bochim, a new generation forgets God, and the pattern of the whole book is set.
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Judges 3: Getting Your Head Right
August 17, 2025
God leaves nations in the land to test and train Israel, and raises up Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar to deliver them.
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Judges 4–5: Nailed It: How God Uses Unlikely Warriors
August 24, 2025
Deborah leads, Barak hesitates, Jael acts, and God routs Sisera's iron chariots.
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Judges 6:1–32: The Commissioning of Gideon
August 31, 2025
Israel is crushed by Midian, and the angel of the Lord finds Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress and calls him a mighty warrior.
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Judges 6:33–7:25: Gideon: From Fleece to Flawless Victory
September 7, 2025
God shrinks Gideon's army from 32,000 to 300 so that Israel will know the victory is the Lord's.
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Judges 8: Finishing Strong
September 14, 2025
Gideon wins the war, then stumbles: vengeance, an ephod that becomes a snare, and Israel's quick return to Baal.
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Judges 9: When Bramble Rules
September 21, 2025
Abimelech seizes power at Shechem, Jotham tells the fable of the trees, and God returns the evil on every head.
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Judges 10–11: Jephthah’s Journey
September 28, 2025
Israel cries out, God rebukes them, and Jephthah, once rejected by his family, is called to lead and then makes a rash vow.
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Judges 12–13: The Birth of a Deliverer
October 5, 2025
After a needless civil war, God sends the angel of the Lord to announce a child who will begin to save Israel from the Philistines.
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Judges 14–15: Strength and Struggles
October 12, 2025
Samson is called and empowered, but he lives by what is right in his own eyes, and God still uses him against the Philistines.
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Judges 16: From Nazirite to Martyr: The Cost of Compromise
October 19, 2025
Samson gives away the secret of his strength, loses his sight and freedom, and in the end calls on the Lord one last time.
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Judges 17–18: Micah’s Idolatry and the Danite Migration
October 26, 2025
A private shrine becomes a tribe's false worship: religious compromise and moral relativism take over Israel.
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Judges 19–20: A Nation Confronts Its Darkness
November 2, 2025
The book's darkest chapters: moral collapse at Gibeah and a nation that must confront what it has become.