12 Once again the Israelis started doing things considered evil by Yahweh, so because of that, he strengthened King Eglon of Moab against Israel. 13 King Eglon enlisted warriors from the Ammonites and the Amalekites, and they attacked Israel and captured Yericho, the city of palm trees, 14 so the Israelis served him for eighteen years.

15 But the Israelis cried out to Yahweh, he sent them a leader to rescue them: the left-hander Ehud, son of Gera the Benyamite. The Israelis sent him to carry the tribute payment to King Eglon of Moab. 16 Now Ehud had made himself a double-edged sword—a short one about half a metre long—and he strapped it to his right thigh beneath his clothes. 17 Then he presented the tribute to King Eglon of Moab, who was a very fat man, 18 and after leaving for home, he sent off the people who’d actually carried it all. 19 Then from the stone quarries that they’d reached near Gilgal, he returned and told the king that he had a private message for him. The king told his attendants to be quiet then sent them out of the room.

20 So Ehud approached where the king was sitting alone in the coolness of his upper room and told him, “I have a message for you from God.” The king stood up from his seat 21 and then Ehud reached with his left hand and pulled the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly. 22 Even the handle went in after the blade and the fat closed up over the handle because Ehud didn’t pull the sword out of his belly. Then he went out to the passage[fn] 23 and closed and locked the rooms of the upper room and exited through the porch.[fn] 24 After he’d left, the servants came and found the doors locked, so they thought the king must be relieving himself in there. 25 They waited until they became worried that he hadn’t opened the doors, so they got a key and opened them, only to find their master lying dead on the floor.

26 While the servants had been waiting, Ehud had escaped and passed beyond the quarries, then fleeing to Seirah. 27 When he got there, he blew a trumpet throughout the Efraimite hill country, and so the Israelis assembled under his direction down in the valley. 28 “Follow after me,” he told them, “because Yahweh will enable you all to defeat your enemies, the Moabites.” So they followed him down to the Yordan river and captured the fords opposite Moab, thus preventing anyone from crossing. 29 Then they attacked Moab and killed around ten thousand men—all strong and capable yet none of them escaped. 30 So Moab was subdued that day by the Israelis, and there was peace in the region for eighty years.