² Jephthah said to them, “My people and I were engaged in conflict with the Ammonites who oppressed us^[a] severely. But when I called you, you did not deliver me from their hand.

¹² Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said, “What is there between you and me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?” ¹³ The king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel, on coming from Egypt, took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan; now, therefore, restore it peaceably.”^{(A) 14} Once again Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites ¹⁵ and said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites,^{(B) 16} but when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea^[a] and came to Kadesh.^{(C) 17} Israel then sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Let us pass through your land,’ but the king of Edom would not listen. They also sent to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained at Kadesh. ¹⁸ Then they journeyed through the wilderness, went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab, arrived on the east side of the land of Moab, and camped on the other side of the Arnon. They did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab.^{(D) 19} Israel then sent messengers to King Sihon of the Amorites, king of Heshbon, and Israel said to him, ‘Let us pass through your land to our country.’^{(E) 20} But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory, so Sihon gathered all his people together and encamped at Jahaz and fought with Israel.^{(F) 21} Then the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them, so Israel occupied all the land of the Amorites, who inhabited that country.^{(G) 22} They occupied all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan.^{(H) 23} So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has conquered the Amorites for the benefit of his people Israel. Do you intend to take their place? ²⁴ Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? And should we not be the ones to possess everything that the Lord our God has conquered for our benefit?^{(I) 25} Now are you any better than King Balak son of Zippor of Moab? Did he ever enter into conflict with Israel, or did he ever go to war with them?^{(J) 26} While Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aroer and its villages, and in all the towns that are along the Arnon, three hundred years, why did you not recover them within that time?^{(K) 27} It is not I who have sinned against you, but you are the one who does me wrong by making war on me. Let the Lord, who is judge, decide today for the Israelites or for the Ammonites.”^{(L) 28} But the king of the Ammonites did not heed the message that Jephthah sent him.

Jephthah’s Vow

²⁹ Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites.^{(M) 30} And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, ³¹ then whatever^[b] comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” ³² So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand. ³³ He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.^(N)