3. For which reason they removed their camp to Hebron; and when they had
taken it, they slew all the inhabitants. There were till then left the
race of giants, who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely
different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and
terrible to the hearing. The bones of these men are still shown to this
very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men. Now they gave
this city to the Levites as an extraordinary reward, with the suburbs of
two thousand cities; but the land thereto belonging they gave as a free
gift to Caleb, according to the injunctions of Moses. This Caleb was one
of the spies which Moses sent into the land of Canaan. They also gave
land for habitation to the posterity of Jethro, the Midianite, who was
the father-in-law to Moses; for they had left their own country, and
followed them, and accompanied them in the wilderness.

4. Now the tribes of Judah and Simeon took the cities which were in the
mountainous part of Canaan, as also Askelon and Ashdod, of those that
lay near the sea; but Gaza and Ekron escaped them, for they, lying in a
flat country, and having a great number of chariots, sorely galled those
that attacked them. So these tribes, when they were grown very rich by
this war, retired to their own cities, and laid aside their weapons of
war.

5. But the Benjamites, to whom belonged Jerusalem, permitted its
inhabitants to pay tribute. So they all left off, the one to kill, and
the other to expose themselves to danger, and had time to cultivate the
ground. The rest of the tribes imitated that of Benjamin, and did the
same; and, contenting themselves with the tributes that were paid them,
permitted the Canaanites to live in peace.

6. However, the tribe of Ephraim, when they besieged Bethel, made no
advance, nor performed any thing worthy of the time they spent, and of
the pains they took about that siege; yet did they persist in it, still
sitting down before the city, though they endured great trouble thereby:
but, after some time, they caught one of the citizens that came to them
to get necessaries, and they gave him some assurances that, if he would
deliver up the city to them, they would preserve him and his kindred; so
he aware that, upon those terms, he would put the city into their hands.
Accordingly, he that, thus betrayed the city was preserved with his
family; and the Israelites slew all the inhabitants, and retained the
city f