⁸ They had no one to make arms, there were no more armed men in the towns; was there a body-cover or a spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel?

¹⁶ The honour which was his they gave to strange gods; by their disgusting ways he was moved to wrath.

¹⁷ They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers.

¹² And they gave up the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had taken them out of the land of Egypt, and went after other gods, the gods of the peoples round about them, worshipping them and moving the Lord to wrath.

¹⁷ But still they would not give ear to their judges, but went after other gods and gave them worship; quickly turning from the way in which their fathers had gone, keeping the orders of the Lord; but they did not do so.

³ Then the children of Israel made prayer to the Lord; for he had nine hundred iron war-carriages, and for twenty years he was very cruel to the children of Israel.

¹⁹ Now there was no iron-worker in all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, For fear the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears:

²⁰ But all the Israelites had to go to the Philistines to get their ploughs and blades and axes and hooks made sharp;

²¹ For they had instruments for putting an edge on their ploughs and blades and forks and axes, and for putting iron points on their ox-driving rods.

²² So on the day of the fight at Michmash, not a sword or a spear was to be seen in the hands of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan: only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.