Judges 11

1Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, and he was the son of a prostitute; and Gilead fathered Jephthah.

2And Gilead’s wife bore him sons. When the sons of the wife grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, “You will not have an inheritance in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.”

3So Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob, and worthless men gathered around Jephthah and went out with him.

4After some time, the Ammonites fought against Israel.

5And when the Ammonites fought against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob.

6And they said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, and let us fight against the Ammonites.”

7Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me and drive me out from my father’s house? So why have you come to me now, when you are in distress?”

8And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is why we have now come back to you, so that you may go with us and fight against the Ammonites, and you will be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

9Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me back to fight against the Ammonites, and Yahweh gives them before me, I will be your head.”

10Then the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Yahweh will be witness between us if we do not do according to your word.”

11So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them. And Jephthah spoke all his words before Yahweh at Mizpah.

12Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, saying, “What is there between me and you, that you have come against me to fight in my land?”

13And the king of the Ammonites said to Jephthah’s messengers, “Because Israel took my land when it came up from Egypt, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and as far as the Jordan, now restore them peacefully.”

14Then Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites.

15And he said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the sons of Ammon.”

16For when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness as far as the Red Sea and came to Kadesh.

17Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Please let us pass through your land,’ but the king of Edom did not listen. And he also sent to the king of Moab, but he was unwilling, so Israel remained at Kadesh.

18Then he went through the wilderness and went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and came to the east side of the land of Moab, and they camped beyond the Arnon; but they did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab.

19Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon, and Israel said to him, “Please let us pass through your land to our place.”

20But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. So Sihon gathered all his people, and they camped at Jahaz, and he fought against Israel.

21And Yahweh, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they struck them down. So Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites who lived in that land.

22So they took possession of all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok, and from the wilderness as far as the Jordan.

23And now Yahweh, the God of Israel, has dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel; and are you to possess it?

24Will you not possess what Chemosh your god causes you to possess? And all that Yahweh our God has dispossessed before us, that we will possess.

25And now, are you really better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever contend with Israel, or did he ever fight against them?

26While Israel has lived in Heshbon and its daughter towns, and in Aroer and its daughter towns, and in all the cities that are along the Arnon, for three hundred years, why did you not recover them during that time?

27I have not sinned against you, but you are doing me wrong by making war against me. May Yahweh, the Judge, judge today between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ammon.

28But the king of the Ammonites did not listen to the words of Jephthah that he sent to him.

29Then the Spirit of Yahweh came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites.

30And Jephthah made a vow to Yahweh and said, “If you indeed give the Ammonites into my hand,”

31then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be Yahweh’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.

32So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and Yahweh gave them into his hand.

33And he struck them from Aroer as far as the entrance to Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a very great slaughter. So the sons of Ammon were subdued before the sons of Israel.

34Then Jephthah came to Mizpah, to his house, and behold, his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. Now she was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter.

35And when he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of my trouble. For I have opened my mouth to Yahweh, and I cannot turn back.”

36And she said to him, “My father, you have opened your mouth to Yahweh; do to me according to what has gone out from your mouth, since Yahweh has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, on the sons of Ammon.”

37And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: leave me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and weep over my virginity, I and my companions.”

38And he said, “Go.” So he sent her away for two months, and she went, she and her companions, and wept over her virginity on the mountains.

39And at the end of two months she returned to her father, and he did to her according to his vow that he had vowed. Now she had not known a man. And it became a statute in Israel:

40From year to year the daughters of Israel would go to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.