¹² Then Jephthah sent messengers to the Ammonite king, saying, “What is the problem between us that you’ve come against me to make war in my land?”

¹³ The Ammonite king responded to Jephthah’s messengers, “When the Israelites were coming up from Egypt, they seized my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok and all the way to the Jordan. Now give it back peacefully!”

¹⁴ Then Jephthah again sent messengers to the Ammonite king ¹⁵ and said to him, “Jephthah states: Israel didn’t seize the land of the Moabites or the land of the Ammonites. ¹⁶ When they were coming up from Egypt, the Israelites went through the desert to the Reed Sea^[a] and came to Kadesh. ¹⁷ Then the Israelites sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Please allow us to pass through your land’; but the Edomite king refused. They sent the same request to the king of Moab, and he was unwilling. So the Israelites stayed at Kadesh.

¹⁸ “Later they journeyed into the desert but went around the lands of Edom and Moab, arriving on the east side of the land of Moab and setting up camp on the other side of the Arnon. They never entered Moabite territory, because the Arnon was the boundary of Moab. ¹⁹ Then the Israelites sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites and king of Heshbon and said to him, ‘Please allow us to pass through your land to our own place.’ ²⁰ Yet Sihon didn’t trust the Israelites to pass through his territory. He assembled his entire army, set up camp at Jahaz, and went to war with the Israelites. ²¹ The Lord, Israel’s God, handed over Sihon and his entire army to the Israelites, and they defeated Sihon. So the Israelites took possession of all the land of the Amorites who were living in that area. ²² They took possession of all the Amorite territory from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the desert to the Jordan.

²³ “So now that the Lord, Israel’s God, has driven out the Amorites before his people Israel, will you take possession of their land? ²⁴ Shouldn’t you possess what Chemosh your god has given you to possess? And shouldn’t we possess everything that the Lord our God has given us to possess? ²⁵ Do you now have a better case than Moab’s King Balak, Zippor’s son? Did he make an accusation against the Israelites or go to war with them? ²⁶ Why didn’t you take back this territory while the Israelites lived in Heshbon and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the towns along the branches of the Arnon for three hundred years? ²⁷ I haven’t sinned against you, but you’re doing me wrong by making war against me. Let the Lord, who is the judge, decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites!”

²⁸ But the Ammonite king refused to listen to the message that Jephthah sent to him.