²⁹ Then Yahweh’s Spirit came on Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed over to the children of Ammon.

³⁰ Jephthah vowed a vow to Yahweh, and said, “If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, ³¹ then it shall be, that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be Yahweh’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.”

³² So Jephthah passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and Yahweh delivered them into his hand. ³³ He struck them from Aroer until you come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and to Abelcheramim, with a very great slaughter. So the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.

³⁴ Jephthah came to Mizpah to his house; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. ³⁵ When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to Yahweh, and I can’t go back.”

³⁶ She said to him, “My father, you have opened your mouth to Yahweh; do to me according to that which has proceeded out of your mouth, because Yahweh has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, even on the children of Ammon.” ³⁷ Then she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me. Leave me alone two months, that I may depart and go down on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.”

³⁸ He said, “Go.” He sent her away for two months; and she departed, she and her companions, and mourned her virginity on the mountains. ³⁹ At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. She was a virgin. It became a custom in Israel ⁴⁰ that the daughters of Israel went yearly to celebrate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.