[an error occurred while processing this directive] | New Living Translation |
1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1Now Jephthah of Gilead was a great warrior. He was the son of Gilead, but his mother was a prostitute. |
2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2Gilead’s wife also had several sons, and when these half brothers grew up, they chased Jephthah off the land. “You will not get any of our father’s inheritance,” they said, “for you are the son of a prostitute.” |
3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3So Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Soon he had a band of worthless rebels following him. |
4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4At about this time, the Ammonites began their war against Israel. |
5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5When the Ammonites attacked, the elders of Gilead sent for Jephthah in the land of Tob. |
6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6The elders said, “Come and be our commander! Help us fight the Ammonites!” |
7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7But Jephthah said to them, “Aren’t you the ones who hated me and drove me from my father’s house? Why do you come to me now when you’re in trouble?” |
8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8“Because we need you,” the elders replied. “If you lead us in battle against the Ammonites, we will make you ruler over all the people of Gilead.” |
9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9Jephthah said to the elders, “Let me get this straight. If I come with you and if the LORD gives me victory over the Ammonites, will you really make me ruler over all the people?” |
10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10“The LORD is our witness,” the elders replied. “We promise to do whatever you say.” |
11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him their ruler and commander of the army. At Mizpah, in the presence of the LORD, Jephthah repeated what he had said to the elders. |
12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of Ammon, asking, “Why have you come out to fight against my land?” |
13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13The king of Ammon answered Jephthah’s messengers, “When the Israelites came out of Egypt, they stole my land from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River and all the way to the Jordan. Now then, give back the land peaceably.” |
14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14Jephthah sent this message back to the Ammonite king: |
15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15“This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not steal any land from Moab or Ammon. |
16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16When the people of Israel arrived at Kadesh on their journey from Egypt after crossing the Red Sea, |
17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17they sent messengers to the king of Edom asking for permission to pass through his land. But their request was denied. Then they asked the king of Moab for similar permission, but he wouldn’t let them pass through either. So the people of Israel stayed in Kadesh. |
18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18“Finally, they went around Edom and Moab through the wilderness. They traveled along Moab’s eastern border and camped on the other side of the Arnon River. But they never once crossed the Arnon River into Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab. |
19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19“Then Israel sent messengers to King Sihon of the Amorites, who ruled from Heshbon, asking for permission to cross through his land to get to their destination. |
20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20But King Sihon didn’t trust Israel to pass through his land. Instead, he mobilized his army at Jahaz and attacked them. |
21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21But the LORD, the God of Israel, gave his people victory over King Sihon. So Israel took control of all the land of the Amorites, who lived in that region, |
22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River, and from the eastern wilderness to the Jordan. |
23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23“So you see, it was the LORD, the God of Israel, who took away the land from the Amorites and gave it to Israel. Why, then, should we give it back to you? |
24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24You keep whatever your god Chemosh gives you, and we will keep whatever the LORD our God gives us. |
25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25Are you any better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he try to make a case against Israel for disputed land? Did he go to war against them? |
26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26“Israel has been living here for 300 years, inhabiting Heshbon and its surrounding settlements, all the way to Aroer and its settlements, and in all the towns along the Arnon River. Why have you made no effort to recover it before now? |
27[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 27Therefore, I have not sinned against you. Rather, you have wronged me by attacking me. Let the LORD, who is judge, decide today which of us is right—Israel or Ammon.” |
28[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 28But the king of Ammon paid no attention to Jephthah’s message. Jephthah’s Vow |
29[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 29At that time the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he went throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead, and from there he led an army against the Ammonites. |
30[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 30And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD. He said, “If you give me victory over the Ammonites, |
31[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 31I will give to the LORD whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” |
32[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 32So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the LORD gave him victory. |
33[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 33He crushed the Ammonites, devastating about twenty towns from Aroer to an area near Minnith and as far away as Abel-keramim. In this way Israel defeated the Ammonites. |
34[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 34When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter came out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. She was his one and only child; he had no other sons or daughters. |
35[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 35When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. “Oh, my daughter!” he cried out. “You have completely destroyed me! You’ve brought disaster on me! For I have made a vow to the LORD, and I cannot take it back.” |
36[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 36And she said, “Father, if you have made a vow to the LORD, you must do to me what you have vowed, for the LORD has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites. |
37[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 37But first let me do this one thing: Let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin.” |
38[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 38“You may go,” Jephthah said. And he sent her away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children. |
39[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 39When she returned home, her father kept the vow he had made, and she died a virgin. So it has become a custom in Israel |
40[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 40for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah’s daughter. |
[an error occurred while processing this directive] | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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