CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub]. Common English Bible
![CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] - Common English Bible](limg_read715844.jpg "CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] - Common English Bible")
attacked Israel, Gilead's elders went to bring Jephthah back from the land of Tob. 6They said to him, "Come be our commander so we can fight against the Ammonites."
7But Jephthah replied to Gilead's elders, "Aren't you the ones who hated me and drove me away from my father's household? Why are you coming to me now when you're in trouble?"
8Gilead's elders answered Jephthah, "That may be, but now we're turning back to you, so come with us and fight the Ammonites. Then you'll become the leader over us and everyone who lives in Gilead."
9And Jephthah said to Gilead's elders, "If you bring me back to fight the Ammonites and the LORD gives them over to me, I alone will be your leader."
10Gilead's elders replied to him, "The LORD is our witness; we will surely do what you've said."11So Jephthah went with Gilead's elders, and the people made him leader and commander over them. At Mizpah before the LORD, Jephthah repeated everything he had said.
12Then 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?"
13The 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!"
14Then Jephthah again sent messengers to the Ammonite king 15and said to him, "Jephthah states: Israel didn't seize the land of the Moabites or the land of the Ammonites. 16When they were coming up from Egypt, the Israelites went through the desert to the Reed Seai and came to Kadesh. 17Then 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. 19Then 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.' 20Yet 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. 21The 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. 22They 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?24Shouldn'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?25Do 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?26Why 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?27I 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!"
28But the Ammonite king refused to listen to the message that Jephthah sent to him.
Jephthah's promise
29Then the LORD's spirit came on Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh, then through Mizpah in Gilead, and from there he crossed over to the Ammonites. 30Jephthah made a solemn promise to the LORD: "If you will decisively hand over the Ammonites to me,31then whatever comes out the doors of my house to meet me when I return victorious from the Ammonites will be given over to the LORD. I will sacrifice it as an entirely burned offering."32Jephthah crossed over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD handed them over to him. 33It was an exceptionally great defeat; he defeated twenty towns from Aroer to the area of Minnith, and on as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were brought down before the Israelites.
34But when Jephthah came to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was an only child; he had no other son or daughter except her. 35When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, "Oh no! My daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You are my agony! For I opened my mouth to the LORD, and I can't take it back."
36But she replied to him, "My father, you've opened your mouth to the LORD, so you should do to me just what you've promised. After all, the LORD has carried out just punishment for you on your enemies the Ammonites."37Then she said to her father, "Let this one thing be done for me: hold off for two months and let me and my friends wander the hills in sadness, crying over the fact that I never had children."
38"Go," he responded, and he sent her away for two months. She and her friends walked on the hills and cried because she would never have children.
39When two months had passed, she returned to her father, and he did to her what he had promised. She had not known a man intimately. But she gave rise to a tradition in Israel where 40for four days every year Israelite daughters would go away to recount the story of the Gileadite Jephthah's daughter.
Jephthah defeats the Ephraimites
Judges 12The Ephraimites were called up for battle and crossed over to Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, "Why did you cross over to fight the Ammonites and not call us to go with you? We're going to burn down your house over you!"
2Jephthah replied to them, "My people and I were in a great conflict with the Ammonites. But when I cried out to you, you didn't rescue me from their power. 3When I saw that you weren't going to rescue me, I risked my own life and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the LORD handed them over to me. So why have you marched against me today to fight me?"
4So Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought the Ephraimites. The Gileadites defeated the Ephraimites, because they had said, "You are fugitives from Ephraim! Gilead stands within Ephraim and Manasseh."
5The Gileadites took control of the Jordan's crossing points into Ephraim. Whenever one of the Ephraimite fugitives said, "Let me cross," the Gileadites would ask him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said, "No,"6they would tell him, "Then say shibboleth." But he would say, "sibboleth," because he couldn't pronounce it correctly. So they would seize him and kill him at the Jordan's crossing points. Forty-two thousand of the Ephraimites fell at that time.
7Jephthah led Israel for six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in one of the towns in Gilead.
Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon
8After Jephthah, Ibzan from Bethlehem led Israel. 9He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He married his thirty daughters to those outside his clan, and brought in thirty young women from outside for his sons. He led Israel for seven years. 10Then Ibzan died and was buried in Bethlehem.
11After Ibzan, Elon from Zebulun led Israel; he did so for ten years. 12Then Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.
13After Elon, Abdon, Hillel's son from Pirathon, led Israel. 14He had forty sons and thirty grandsons mounted on seventy donkeys. He led Israel for eight years. 15Then Abdon, Hillel's son from Pirathon, died and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the Amalekite highlands.
Samson's birth
Judges 13The Israelites again did things that the LORD saw as evil, and he handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.