^9 (A)not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary ^(B)blessing, knowing that you were called to this, ^(C)that you may inherit a blessing.

¹⁴ and he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with ^[a]scourges!”

¹⁶ Now when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying:

So Israel departed to their tents.

⁴¹ Just then all the men of Israel came to the king, and said to the king, “Why have our brethren, the men of Judah, stolen you away and ^(A)brought the king, his household, and all David’s men with him across the Jordan?”

⁴² So all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, “Because the king is ^(B)a close relative of ours. Why then are you angry over this matter? Have we ever eaten at the king’s expense? Or has he given us any gift?”

⁴³ And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said, “We have ^(C)ten shares in the king; therefore we also have more right to David than you. Why then do you despise us—were we not the first to advise bringing back our king?”

Yet ^(D)the words of the men of Judah were ^[a]fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.

Jephthah’s Conflict with Ephraim

12 Then ^(A)the men of Ephraim ^[a]gathered together, crossed over toward Zaphon, and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the people of Ammon, and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house down on you with fire!”

² And Jephthah said to them, “My people and I were in a great struggle with the people of Ammon; and when I called you, you did not deliver me out of their hands. ³ So when I saw that you would not deliver me, I ^(B)took my life in my hands and crossed over against the people of Ammon; and the Lord delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me?” ⁴ Now Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. And the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because they said, “You Gileadites ^(C)are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites.” ⁵ The Gileadites seized the ^(D)fords of the Jordan before the Ephraimites arrived. And when any Ephraimite who escaped said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” ⁶ then they would say to him, “Then say, ^(E)‘Shibboleth’!”^[b] And he would say, “Sibboleth,” for he could not ^[c]pronounce it right. Then they would take him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan. There fell at that time forty-two thousand Ephraimites.

⁹ Yet Michael the archangel, in ^[a]contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, ^(A)“The Lord rebuke you!”