Judges 11:21-40 ▼

21 Then Yahweh, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they struck them down; so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country.

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

23 So now Yahweh, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before His people Israel. Are you then to possess it?

24 Do you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whatever Yahweh our God has taken possession of before us, we will possess it.

25 So now are you any better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive with Israel, or did he ever fight against them?

26 While Israel lived in Heshbon and its towns and in Aroer and its towns and in all the cities that are on the banks of the Arnon, 300 years, why did you not deliver them for yourself within that time?

27 I therefore have not sinned against you, but you are doing me evil by making war against me; may Yahweh, the Judge, judge today between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ammon.’”

28 But the king of the sons of Ammon did not listen to the words which Jephthah sent him.

29 Now the Spirit of Yahweh came upon Jephthah, so that he passed through Gilead and Manasseh; then he passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he went on to the sons of Ammon.

30 Then Jephthah made a vow to Yahweh and said, “If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand,

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

32 So Jephthah crossed over to the sons of Ammon to fight against them; and Yahweh gave them into his hand.

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

34 Then Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing. Now she was his one and only child; besides her he had no son or daughter.

35 So it happened that when he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are among those who trouble me. But I have opened my mouth to vow to Yahweh, and I cannot take it back.”

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

37 Then she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me; let me alone two months, that I may go to the mountains and weep because of my virginity, I and my companions.”

38 Then he said, “Go.” So he sent her away for two months; and she went with her companions and wept on the mountains because of her virginity.

39 And it happened at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he did to her according to the vow which he had made; and she did not know a man. Thus it became a custom in Israel,

40 that the daughters of Israel went yearly to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.