Judges 11:21-40 ▼

21 and YHWH, God of Israel, gives Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they strike them, and Israel possesses all the land of the Amorite, the inhabitant of that land,

22 and they possess all the border of the Amorite from Arnon, and to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness, and to the Jordan.

23 And now, YHWH, God of Israel, has dispossessed the Amorite from the presence of His people Israel, and you would possess it!

24 That which your god Chemosh causes you to possess—do you not possess it? And all that which our God YHWH has dispossessed from our presence—we possess it.

25 And now, [are] you at all better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he strive with Israel at all? Did he fight against them at all?

26 In Israel’s dwelling in Heshbon and in its towns, and in Aroer and in its towns, and in all the cities which [are] by the sides of Arnon [for] three hundred years—and why have you not delivered them in that time?

27 And I have not sinned against you, and you are doing evil with me—to fight against me. YHWH, the Judge, judges between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ammon today.”

28 And the king of the sons of Ammon has not listened to the words of Jephthah which he sent to him,

29 and the Spirit of YHWH is on Jephthah, and he passes over Gilead and Manasseh, and passes over Mizpeh of Gilead, and he has passed over from Mizpeh of Gilead to the sons of Ammon.

30 And Jephthah vows a vow to YHWH and says, “If You give the sons of Ammon into my hand at all—

31 then it has been, that which comes out from the doors of my house at all to meet me in my turning back in peace from the sons of Ammon—it has been for YHWH, or I have offered up a burnt-offering for it.”

32 And Jephthah passes over to the sons of Ammon to fight against them, and YHWH gives them into his hand,

33 and he strikes them from Aroer, and to [where] you are going in to Minnith—twenty cities—and to the meadow of the vineyards, [with] a very great striking; and the sons of Ammon are humbled at the presence of the sons of Israel.

34 And Jephthah comes into Mizpeh, to his house, and behold, his daughter is coming out to meet him with timbrels, and with choruses, and except her alone, he has no son or daughter.

35 And it comes to pass, when he sees her, that he tears his garments and says, “Aah! My daughter, you have caused me to bend greatly, and you have been among those troubling me; and I have opened my mouth to YHWH, and I am not able to turn back.”

36 And she says to him, “My father, you have opened your mouth to YHWH, do to me as it has gone out from your mouth, after that YHWH has done vengeance for you on your enemies, on the sons of Ammon.”

37 And she says to her father, “Let this thing be done to me; desist from me [for] two months, and I go on, and have gone down on the hills, and I weep for my virginity—I and my friends.”

38 And he says, “Go”; and he sends her away [for] two months, and she goes, she and her friends, and she weeps for her virginity on the hills;

39 and it comes to pass at the end of two months that she turns back to her father, and he does to her his vow which he has vowed, and she did not know a man; and it is a statute in Israel:

40 from time to time the daughters of Israel go to talk to the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in a year.