Judges 3:14–26

¹⁴The Israelites served Eglon king of Moab eighteen years. ¹⁵And again they cried out to the LORD, and He raised up Ehud son of Gera, a left-handed Benjamite, as their deliverer. So they sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab.

¹⁶Now Ehud had made for himself a double-edged sword a cubit long.^c He strapped it to his right thigh under his cloak ¹⁷and brought the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was an obese man.

¹⁸After Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he ushered out those who had carried it. ¹⁹But upon reaching the idols near Gilgal, he himself turned back and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.”

“Silence,” said the king, and all his attendants left him.

²⁰Then Ehud approached him while he was sitting alone in the coolness of his upper room. “I have a word from God for you,” Ehud said, and the king rose from his seat.

²¹And Ehud reached with his left hand, pulled the sword from his right thigh, and plunged it into Eglon’s belly. ²²Even the handle sank in after the blade, and Eglon’s fat closed in over it, so that Ehud did not withdraw the sword from his belly. And Eglon’s bowels emptied. ²³Then Ehud went out through the porch, closing and locking the doors of the upper room behind him.

²⁴After Ehud was gone, Eglon’s servants came in and found the doors of the upper room locked. “He must be relieving himself in the cool room,” they said. ²⁵So they waited until they became worried and saw that he had still not opened the doors of the upper room. Then they took the key and opened the doors— and there was their lord lying dead on the floor.

²⁶Ehud, however, had escaped while the servants waited. He passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah.