Judges 11

1Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. He was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was Jephthah’s father.

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

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

4Some time later the Ammonites made war against Israel.

5When the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah back from the land of Tob.

6They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, so that we can fight the Ammonites.”

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

8The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is why we have now turned back to you. Come with us and fight the Ammonites, and you will be our head over all the people who live in Gilead.”

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

10The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Yahweh will be the witness between us. We will certainly do as you say.”

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

12Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites to say, “What do you have against me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?”

13The king of the Ammonites answered Jephthah’s messengers, “Because Israel took my land when they came up from Egypt, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan. Now give it back peacefully.”

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

15He said to him, “This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites.

16When they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh.

17Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom to say, ‘Please let us pass through your land,’ but the king of Edom would not listen. They sent to the king of Moab too, but he was not willing. So Israel stayed at Kadesh.

18Then they went through the wilderness and went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab. They came to the east side of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon. They did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was Moab’s border.

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

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

21Then Yahweh, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into Israel’s hand, and they defeated them. So Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites who lived in that country.

22They took possession of all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan.

23So now that Yahweh, the God of Israel, has driven out the Amorites before his people Israel, are you going to take possession of it?

24Will you not possess whatever Chemosh your god gives you to possess? And whatever Yahweh our God has driven out before us, we will possess.

25Now are you any better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever quarrel with Israel? Did he ever fight against them?

26While Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the towns along the Arnon for three hundred years, why did you not take them back during that time?

27I have not sinned against you, but you are doing me wrong by making war on me. May Yahweh, the Judge, decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”

28But the king of the Ammonites did not listen to the message Jephthah sent him.

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

30Jephthah made a vow to Yahweh: “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand,

31then whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return safely from the Ammonites will 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.

33He struck them with a very great slaughter from Aroer to the approach to Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were brought low before the Israelites.

34When Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter.

35When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Oh, my daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You have become the cause of my trouble! I have opened my mouth to Yahweh, and I cannot take it back.”

36She said to him, “My father, you have opened your mouth to Yahweh. Do to me what you promised, since Yahweh has given you vengeance on your enemies, the Ammonites.”

37She also said to her father, “Let this one thing be done for me: leave me alone for two months, so that I may go down into the mountains and weep for my virginity, I and my friends.”

38“Go,” he said. He sent her away for two months, and she and her friends went and wept for her virginity on the mountains.

39At the end of two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She had never been with a man. So it became a custom in Israel

40that every year the young women of Israel would go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.