¹ Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a great man of war; he was the son of a loose woman, and Gilead was his father.

² And Gilead's wife gave birth to sons, and when her sons became men, they sent Jephthah away, saying, You have no part in the heritage of our father's house, for you are the son of another woman.

³ So Jephthah went in flight from his brothers and was living in the land of Tob, where a number of good-for-nothing men, joining Jephthah, went out with him on his undertakings.

⁴ Now after a time the children of Ammon made war against Israel.

⁵ And when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the responsible men of Gilead went to get Jephthah back from the land of Tob;

⁶ And they said to Jephthah, Come and be our chief so that we may make war against the children of Ammon.

⁷ But Jephthah said to the responsible men of Gilead, Did you not, in your hate for me, send me away from my father's house? Why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?

⁸ And the responsible men of Gilead said to Jephthah, That is the reason we have come back to you; so go with us and make war against the children of Ammon, and we will make you our head over all the people of Gilead.

⁹ Then Jephthah said to the responsible men of Gilead, If you take me back to make war against the children of Ammon, and if with the help of the Lord I overcome them, will you make me your head?

¹⁰ And the responsible men of Gilead said to Jephthah, May the Lord be our witness: we will certainly do as you say.

¹¹ So Jephthah went with the responsible men of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them; and Jephthah said all these things before the Lord in Mizpah.

¹² Then Jephthah sent men to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What have you against me that you have come to make war against my land?

¹³ And the king of the children of Ammon said to the men sent by Jephthah, Because Israel, when he came up out of Egypt, took away my land, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and as far as Jordan: so now, give me back those lands quietly.

¹⁴ And Jephthah sent again to the king of the children of Ammon,

¹⁵ And said to him, This is the word of Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the children of Ammon;

¹⁶ But when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the waste land to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh;

¹⁷ Then Israel sent men to the king of Edom saying, Let me now go through your land; but the king of Edom did not give ear to them. And in the same way he sent to the king of Moab, but he would not; so Israel went on living in Kadesh.

¹⁸ Then he went on through the waste land and round the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and put up their tents on the other side of the Arnon; they did not come inside the limit of Moab, for the Arnon was the limit of Moab.

¹⁹ And Israel sent men to Sihon, king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, Let me now go through your land to my place.

²⁰ But Sihon would not give way and let Israel go through his land; and Sihon got together all his people, and put his army in position in Jahaz, and made war on Israel.

²¹ And the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hands of Israel, and they overcame them; so all the land of the Amorites, the people of that land, became Israel's.

²² All the limit of the Amorites was theirs, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and from the waste land even to Jordan.

²³ So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has taken away their land from the Amorites and given it to his people Israel; are you then to have it?

²⁴ Do you not keep the lands of those whom Chemosh your god sends out from before you? So we will keep all the lands of those whom the Lord our god sends out from before us.

²⁵ What! are you any better than Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever take up a cause against Israel or make war against them?

²⁶ While Israel was living in Heshbon and its daughter-towns and in Aroer and its daughter-towns and in all the towns which are by the side of the Arnon, for three hundred years, why did you not get them back at that time?

²⁷ So I have done no wrong against you, but you are doing wrong to me in fighting against me: may the Lord, who is Judge this day, be Judge between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.

²⁸ The king of the children of Ammon, however, did not give ear to the words which Jephthah sent to him.

²⁹ Then the spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah, and he went through Gilead and Manasseh, and came to Mizpeh of Gilead; and from Mizpeh of Gilead he went over to the children of Ammon.

³⁰ And Jephthah took an oath to the Lord, and said, If you will give the children of Ammon into my hands,

³¹ Then whoever comes out from the door of my house, meeting me when I come back in peace from the children of Ammon, will be the Lord's and I will give him as a burned offering.

³² So Jephthah went over to the children of Ammon to make war on them; and the Lord gave them into his hands.

³³ And he made an attack on them from Aroer all the way to Minnith, overrunning twenty towns, as far as Abel-cheramim, and put great numbers to the sword. So the children of Ammon were crushed before the children of Israel.

³⁴ Then Jephthah came back to his house in Mizpah, and his daughter came out, meeting him on his way with music and with dances; she was his only child; he had no other sons or daughters.

³⁵ And when he saw her he was overcome with grief, and said, Ah! my daughter! I am crushed with sorrow, and it is you who are the chief cause of my trouble; for I have made an oath to the Lord and I may not take it back.

³⁶ And she said to him, My father, you have made an oath to the Lord; do then to me whatever you have said; for the Lord has sent a full reward on your haters, on the children of Ammon.

³⁷ Then she said to her father, Only do this for me: let me have two months to go away into the mountains with my friends, weeping for my sad fate.

³⁸ And he said, Go then. So he sent her away for two months; and she went with her friends to the mountains, weeping for her sad fate.

³⁹ And at the end of two months she went back to her father, who did with her as he had said in his oath: and she had never been touched by a man. So it became a rule in Israel,

⁴⁰ For the women to go year by year sorrowing for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in every year.

¹ Then we went back, journeying into the waste land by the way to the Red Sea, as the Lord had said to me: and we were a long time going round Mount Seir.

² And the Lord said to me,

³ You have been journeying round this mountain long enough: now go to the north;

⁴ And give the people orders, saying, You are about to go through the land of your brothers, the children of Esau, who are living in Seir; and they will have fear of you; so take care what you do:

⁵ Make no attack on them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even space enough for a man's foot: because I have given Mount Seir to Esau for his heritage.

⁶ You may get food for your needs from them for a price, and water for drinking.

⁷ For the blessing of the Lord your God has been on you in all the work of your hands: he has knowledge of your wanderings through this great waste: these forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have been short of nothing.

⁸ So we went on past our brothers, the children of Esau, living in Seir, by the road through the Arabah, from Elath and Ezion-geber. And turning, we went by the road through the waste land of Moab.

⁹ And the Lord said to me, Make no attack on Moab and do not go to war with them, for I will not give you any of his land: because I have given Ar to the children of Lot for their heritage.

¹⁰ (In the past the Emim were living there; a great people, equal in numbers to the Anakim and as tall;

¹¹ They are numbered among the Rephaim, like the Anakim; but are named Emim by the Moabites.

¹² And the Horites in earlier times were living in Seir, but the children of Esau took their place; they sent destruction on them and took their land for themselves, as Israel did to the land of his heritage which the Lord gave them.)

¹³ Get up now, and go over the stream Zered. So we went over the stream Zered.

¹⁴ Thirty-eight years had gone by from the time when we came away from Kadesh-barnea till we went over the stream Zered; by that time all the generation of the men of war among us were dead, as the Lord had said.

¹⁵ For the hand of the Lord was against them, working their destruction, till all were dead.

¹⁶ So when death had overtaken all the men of war among the people,

¹⁷ The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁸ You are about to go by Ar, the limit of the country of Moab;

¹⁹ And when you come near the land of the children of Ammon, give them no cause of trouble and do not make war on them, for I will not give you any of the land of the children of Ammon for your heritage: because I have given it to the children of Lot.

²⁰ (That land is said to have been a land of the Rephaim, for Rephaim had been living there in earlier times, but they were named Zamzummim by the Ammonites;

²¹ They were a great people, tall as the Anakim, and equal to them in number; but the Lord sent destruction on them and the children of Ammon took their place, living in their land;

²² As he did for the children of Esau living in Seir, when he sent destruction on the Horites before them, and they took their land where they are living to this day:

²³ And the Avvim, living in the small towns as far as Gaza, came to destruction by the hands of the Caphtorim who came out from Caphtor and took their land.)

²⁴ Get up now, and go on your journey, crossing over the valley of the Arnon: see, I have given into your hands Sihon, the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and all his land: go forward to make it yours, and make war on him,

²⁵ From now on I will put the fear of you in all peoples under heaven, who, hearing of you, will be shaking with fear and grief of heart because of you.

²⁶ Then from the waste land of Kedemoth I sent representatives to Sihon, king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying,

²⁷ Let me go through your land: I will keep to the highway, not turning to the right or to the left;

²⁸ Let me have food, at a price, for my needs, and water for drinking: only let me go through on foot;

²⁹ As the children of Esau did for me in Seir and the Moabites in Ar; till I have gone over Jordan into the land which the Lord our God is giving us.

³⁰ But Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us go through; for the Lord your God made his spirit hard and his heart strong, so that he might give him up into your hands as at this day.

³¹ And the Lord said to me, See, from now on I have given Sihon and his land into your hands: go forward now to take his land and make it yours.

³² Then Sihon came out against us with all his people, to make an attack on us at Jahaz.

³³ And the Lord our God gave him into our hands; and we overcame him and his sons and all his people.

³⁴ At that time we took all his towns, and gave them over to complete destruction, together with men, women, and children; we had no mercy on any:

³⁵ Only the cattle we took for ourselves, with the goods from the towns we had taken.

³⁶ From Aroer on the edge of the valley of the Arnon and from the town in the valley as far as Gilead, no town was strong enough to keep us out; the Lord our God gave them all into our hands:

³⁷ But you did not go near the land of the children of Ammon, that is, all the side of the river Jabbok or the towns of the hill-country, wherever the Lord our God had said we were not to go.