Judges 11:29-40

Evangelical Heritage Version

Jephthah’s Battle With Ammon and His Vow

²⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh. Then he passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he went out against the Ammonites.

³⁰ Jephthah had made a vow to the Lord. He said, “If you indeed give the Ammonites into my hand, ³¹ then whoever or whatever^[a] comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites will belong to the Lord, and I will offer it up as a whole burnt offering.”

³² So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to wage war against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand. ³³ Jephthah struck them down from Aroer all the way to the vicinity of Minnith, twenty cities, as far as Abel Keramim—a great slaughter. Thus the Ammonites were humbled before the people of Israel.

³⁴ But when Jephthah came home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to greet him with drums and dancing! She was his one and only child. Besides her, he had no son or daughter. ³⁵ So, as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothing and cried out, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You have become a source of misery for me. I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take it back!”

³⁶ She said to him, “My father, since you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me exactly what came out of your mouth, since the Lord has carried out vengeance for you on your enemies, the Ammonites.” ³⁷ She also said to her father, “Do this one thing for me: Give me two months reprieve, so that I may go out into the mountains and weep for my virginity—I and my friends.”

³⁸ Her father said, “Go,” and he sent her away for two months. She and her friends went and wept over her virginity there on the mountains. ³⁹ When the two months came to an end, she returned to her father, and he carried out the vow that he had made regarding her. She never was intimate with a man.

This became a custom in Israel: ⁴⁰ From year to year the daughters of Israel go out to hold a memorial service for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days each year.