Judges 10:6-18

Israel then began to serve the Baals and Ashtoreths of the nations around them. God allowed the Philistines and Ammonites to conquer his disobedient children and oppress them for eighteen years. When they cried out to God to deliver them, he told them he had delivered them in the past but they had gone to serve other gods. He told them to ask those gods to deliver them. This apparently caused them to realize their mistake and they put away the false gods they had been serving. God could not stand their misery any longer and prepared a man to deliver them (Ruth 10:6-18).