Welcome to the third chapter of Judges, everybody! Now, we all know things have been pretty quiet in the land of Israel and the surrounding areas, but that all changes in this chapter. We got some bad news, folks: the Lord left some of the nations there to test Israel and see if they would obey his commands. But, of course, they did not - they got seduced by the pagan gods and started worshiping them. So, the Lord turned against them and allowed the nations to oppress them. But - and here's the interesting part - the Lord also raised up judges to save them! We got Ehud, who killed the king of Moab with a dagger; Shamgar, who killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad; and Barak, who defeated the Canaanites with the help of Deborah. So, Israel was saved - for a while. Until they went right back to worshipping foreign gods. Ah, the circle of life!