Judges 11:12-28

¹²Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the people of Ammon, saying, “What is this conflict between us? Why have you come with force to take our land?”

¹³The king of the people of Ammon answered to the messengers of Jephthah, “Because when Israel came up out of Egypt, they seized my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, over to the Jordan. Now give back those lands in peace.”

¹⁴Again Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the people of Ammon,

¹⁵and he said, “This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take the land of Moab and the land of the people of Ammon,

¹⁶but they came up from Egypt, and Israel went through the wilderness to the Sea of Reeds and on to Kadesh.

¹⁷When Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, 'Please let us pass through your land,' the king of Edom would not listen. They also sent messengers to the king of Moab, but he refused. So Israel stayed at Kadesh.

¹⁸Then they went through the wilderness and turned away from the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and they went along the east side of the land of Moab and they camped on the other side of the Arnon. But they did not go into the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was Moab's border.

¹⁹Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon; Israel said to him, 'Please, let us pass through your land to the place that is ours.'

²⁰But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. So Sihon gathered all his army together and moved it to Jahaz, and there he fought against Israel.

²¹Then Yahweh, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel and they defeated them. So Israel took all the land of the Amorites who lived in that country.

²²They took over everything within the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness to the Jordan.

²³So then Yahweh, the God of Israel, has driven out the Amorites before his people Israel, and should you now take possession of their land?

²⁴Will you not take over the land that Chemosh, your god, gives you? So whatever land Yahweh our God has given us, we will take over.

²⁵Now are you really better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he dare to have an argument with Israel? Did he ever wage war against them?

²⁶While Israel lived for three hundred years in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities that are along the banks of the Arnon—why then did you not take them back during that time?

²⁷I have not done you wrong, but you are doing me wrong by attacking me. Yahweh, the judge, will decide today between the people of Israel and the people of Ammon.”

²⁸But the king of the people of Ammon rejected the warning Jephthah sent him.