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Jephthah
Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the Lord and no longer served him,
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Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.
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Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family,” they said, “because you are the son of another woman.”
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So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him.
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the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.
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Jephthah said to them, “Didn’t you hate me and drive me from my father’s house? Why do you come to me now, when you’re in trouble?”
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Jephthah answered, “Suppose you take me back to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gives them to me—will I really be your head?”
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So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them. And he repeated all his words before the Lord in Mizpah.
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Then Jephthah sent messengers to the Ammonite king with the question: “What do you have against me that you have attacked my country?”
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The king of the Ammonites answered Jephthah’s messengers, “When Israel came up out of Egypt, they took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, all the way to the Jordan. Now give it back peaceably.”
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Jephthah sent back messengers to the Ammonite king,
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saying: “This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites.
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The king of Ammon, however, paid no attention to the message Jephthah sent him.
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Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.
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And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands,
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Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands.
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When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter.
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that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
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Jephthah and Ephraim
The Ephraimite forces were called out, and they crossed over to Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, “Why did you go to fight the Ammonites without calling us to go with you? We’re going to burn down your house over your head.”
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Jephthah answered, “I and my people were engaged in a great struggle with the Ammonites, and although I called, you didn’t save me out of their hands.
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Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites struck them down because the Ephraimites had said, “You Gileadites are renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh.”
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Jephthah led Israel six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in a town in Gilead.
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Then the Lord sent Jerub-Baal, Barak, Jephthah and Samuel, and he delivered you from the hands of your enemies all around you, so that you lived in safety.
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And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets,
