The king of Israel said to his courtiers, “Do you know that Ramoth-gilead is ours, yet we are still doing nothing to recover it from the hand of the king of Aram?”
All the people throughout all the tribes of Israel were at strife saying, “The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies and he saved us from the hand of the Philistines. Yet now he had to flee from the land because of Absalom,
Ben-Geber, in Ramot-Gilead (his were the villages of Jair son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead, and also his were the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, 60 great cities with walls and bronze bars);
So Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi conspired against Joram. Now Joram had been defending Ramoth-gilead, he and all Israel, against King Hazael of Aram.
Across the Jordan east of Jericho, they designated Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland from the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh.
The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” So they surrounded him, lay in ambush for him all night at the gate of the city, and kept quiet all night saying, “When morning light comes, then we kill him.”
“Arise, let’s go up against them!” they said. “For we have seen the land—see, it’s very good. Yet you’re sitting still! Don’t be sluggish! Go enter, possess the land!