Judges
Chapter 11
1 Jephthah from Gilead was a brave warrior, and his mother was a prostitute. Gilead was Jephthah’s father.
2 Gilead’s wife had sons for him; when they grew up, they pushed Jephthah out, telling him, “You won’t get any share in our father’s home because you are the son of a different woman.”
3 Jephthah ran away from his brothers and lived in Tob, where worthless men joined him and followed him.
4 As time went on, the Ammonites started a war with Israel.
5 When the Ammonites fought against Israel, the leaders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.
6 They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our leader, so we can fight the Ammonites.”
7 Jephthah asked the leaders of Gilead, “Didn’t you hate me and force me to leave my father’s home? Why do you come to me now that you’re in trouble?”
8 The Gilead leaders said to Jephthah, “We come back to you now so you can join us, fight the Ammonites, and lead everyone in Gilead.”
9 Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you take me back to battle the Ammonites and God lets me win, will I be your leader?”
10 The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “God is our witness that we will do as you say.”
11 Jephthah joined the Gilead leaders, and the people chose him as their leader and commander. Jephthah said all he wanted to say to God at Mizpeh.
12 Jephthah sent messengers to the king of Ammon asking, “Why have you come to fight in my land?”
13 The king of the Ammonites replied to Jephthah’s messengers, “Israel took my land when they left Egypt, from Arnon to Jabbok and up to the Jordan River. So now, give it back peacefully.”
14 Jephthah sent messengers to the king of Ammon’s people again.
15 Jephthah says, “Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites.”
16 When Israel left Egypt and traveled through the desert to the Red Sea, they reached Kadesh.
17 Israel sent messages to the Edom king, asking, “Please let me go through your land.” But the Edom king didn’t listen. They asked the same of the Moab king, but he also refused. So, Israel stayed in Kadesh.
18 They traveled through the desert, going around the land of Edom and Moab, and stopped on the east side of Moab, across from the Arnon river, but did not enter Moab’s borders because Arnon was the boundary.
19 Israel sent messages to Sihon, the Amorite king of Heshbon, saying, “Please let us pass through your land to our own place.”
20 But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his land; instead, Sihon brought all his people together, camped at Jahaz, and battled against Israel.
21 God gave Israel victory over Sihon and his people, and they defeated them. So Israel took over all the land of the Amorites who lived there.
22 They took over all the Amorite territory, from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River, and from the desert to the Jordan River.
23 So now God of Israel has driven out the Amorites for his people Israel, and should you take it over?
24 Wouldn’t you take what your god Chemosh gives you to take? So whoever God our God pushes out from before us, we will take their land.
25 Are you any better than Balak, son of Zippor, the king of Moab? Did he ever argue with Israel or fight them?
26 While Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities near the Arnon River for three hundred years, why didn’t you take them back during that time?
27 So I have not sinned against you, but you are doing wrong by fighting me. Let God, the Judge, decide today between the people of Israel and the people of Ammon.
28 But the king of the Ammonites did not listen to the message Jephthah sent him.
29 God’s Spirit came to Jephthah, and he went through Gilead and Manasseh, and then through Mizpeh in Gilead, and from there he moved on to fight the Ammonites.
30 Jephthah made a promise to God, saying, “If you really give me victory over the Ammonites,
31 When I come back safely from fighting the Ammonites, whatever comes out of my house to greet me will belong to God, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.
32 Jephthah went to fight the Ammonite people, and God let him defeat them.
33 He defeated them from Aroer all the way to Minnith, including twenty cities, and as far as the vineyard plains, killing many. So the Ammonites were conquered by the Israelites.
34 Jephthah arrived at Mizpeh at his home, and saw his daughter coming to greet him with drums and dancing; she was his only child, as he had no other sons or daughters.
35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Oh no, my daughter! You have made me very sad, and you are causing me problems because I made a promise to God, and I can’t take it back.”
36 She said to him, “My father, if you made a promise to God, do to me what you have said, because God has given you revenge against your enemies, the Ammonites.”
37 She said to her father, “Please do this for me: let me have two months to walk on the mountains and cry because I am a virgin, with my friends.”
38 He said, “Go.” So he let her go for two months. She left with her friends and mourned her unwed state on the mountains.
39 After two months, she went back to her father, who did as he had promised in his vow: she never knew a man. This became a tradition in Israel.
40 Every year, the women of Israel would mourn for Jephthah the Gileadite’s daughter for four days.