⁹ Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse, but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing.^(A)

¹⁴ and spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.”^(A)

¹⁶ When all Israel saw that the king would not listen to them, the people answered the king,

So Israel went away to their tents.^(A)

⁴¹ Then all the people of Israel came to the king and said to him, “Why have our kindred the people of Judah stolen you away and brought the king and his household over the Jordan and all David’s men with him?”^{(A) 42} All the people of Judah answered the people of Israel, “Because the king is near of kin to us. Why then are you angry over this matter? Have we eaten at all at the king’s expense? Or has he given us any gift?”^{(B) 43} But the people of Israel answered the people of Judah, “We have ten shares in the king, and in David also we have more than you. Why then did you despise us? Were we not the first to speak of bringing back our king?” But the words of the people of Judah were fiercer than the words of the people of Israel.^(C)

Intertribal Dissension

12 The men of Ephraim were called to arms, and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house down over you!”^{(A) 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. ³ When I saw that you would not deliver me, I took my life in my hand and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day, to fight against me?”^{(B) 4} Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim, and the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because they said, “You are fugitives from Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the heart of Ephraim and Manasseh.”^{[b](C) 5} Then the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. Whenever one of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” When he said, “No,”^{(D) 6} they said to him, “Then say Shibboleth,” and he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand of the Ephraimites fell at that time.

⁹ But when the archangel Michael disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander^[a] against him but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”^(A)