The Judges & Ruth

and they said to Jephthah, “Come and be our chief, that we may fight with the children of Ammon.”

Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Didn’t you hate me, and drive me out of my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?”

The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Therefore we have turned again to you now, that you may go with us, and fight with the children of Ammon; and you shall be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the children of Ammon, and the LORD deliver them before me, shall I be your head?”

The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The LORD shall be witness between us; surely according to your word so will we do.”

Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them: and Jephthah spoke all his words before the LORD in Mizpah.

Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, “What have you to do with me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?”

The king of the children of Ammon answered to the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel took away my land, when he came up out of Egypt, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and to the Jordan: now therefore restore that territory again peaceably.”

Jephthah sent messengers again to the king of the children of Ammon;

and he said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: Israel didn’t take away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon,

but when they came up from Egypt, and Israel went through the wilderness to the Sea of Suf, and came to Kadesh;

then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Please let me pass through your land;’ but the king of Edom didn’t listen. In the same way, he sent to the king of Moab; but he would not: and Israel stayed in Kadesh.

Then they went through the wilderness, and went around the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and they encamped on the other side of the Arnon; but they didn’t come within the border of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab.

Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, ‘Please let us pass through your land to my place.’

But Sihon didn’t trust Israel to pass through his border; but Sihon gathered all his people together, and encamped in Jahaz, and fought against Israel.

The LORD, the God of Israel, delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they struck them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country.

They possessed all the border of the Amorites, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness even to the Jordan.

So now the LORD, the God of Israel, has dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and should you possess them?

Won’t you possess that which Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whoever the LORD our God has dispossessed from before us, them will we possess.

Now are you anything better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them?

While Israel lived in Heshbon and its towns, and in Aroer and its towns, and in all the cities that are along by the side of the Arnon, three hundred years; why didn’t you recover them within that time?

I therefore have not sinned against you, but you do me wrong to war against me. The LORD, the Judge, be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.”

However the king of the children of Ammon didn’t listen to the words of Jephthah which he sent him.

Then the Spirit of the LORD 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.

Jephthah vowed a vow to the LORD, and said, “If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand,