Judges 11:21-40

²¹However, the Lord, the God of Israel, handed over Sihon and all his people to the Israelites, who defeated them. So the Israelites took over all the land inhabited by the Amorites.

²²They occupied all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River, and from the desert to the Jordan River.

²³It was the Lord, the God of Israel, who drove out the Amorites before his people Israel, so why should you take it over?

²⁴Why don't you keep whatever your god Chemosh gave you, and we'll keep whatever the Lord our God has given us?

²⁵Do you think you're so much better than Balak, son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever quarrel with Israel or attack them?

²⁶Israelites have been living in Heshbon, Aroer, their villages, and in all the towns along the banks of the Arnon River for three hundred years. Why didn't you take them back during that time?

²⁷I have not sinned against you, but you have done me wrong by going to war against me. Let the Lord, the Judge, decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”

²⁸But the king of Ammon didn't pay any attention to what Jephthah had to say.

²⁹Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh, then on through Mizpah of Gilead. From there he advanced to attack the Ammonites.

³⁰Jephthah made a solemn promise to the Lord, saying, “If you make me victorious over the Ammonites,

³¹I will dedicate to the Lord whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the battle. I will present it as a burnt offering.”

³²Jephthah advanced to attack the Ammonites, and the Lord gave him the victory over them.

³³He soundly defeated them, capturing twenty cities from Aroer to the area around Minnith, up as far as Abel-keramim. This is how the Ammonites were conquered by the Israelites.

³⁴When Jephthah arrived home in Mizpah, there came his daughter out to meet him, with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child—he had no son or daughter apart from her.

³⁵The moment he saw her, he ripped his clothes in agony and cried out, “Oh no, my daughter! You have crushed me completely! You have destroyed me, for I made a solemn promise to the Lord and I can't go back on it.”

³⁶She replied, “Father, you have made a solemn promise to the Lord. Do to me what you promised, for the Lord brought vengeance your enemies, the Ammonites.”

³⁷Then she went on to say to him, “Just let me do this: let me walk through the hills for two months with my friends and grieve the fact that I'll never marry.”

³⁸“You can go,” he told her. He sent her away for two months, and she and her friends went into the hills and cried because she would never marry.

³⁹When the two months were over, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had promised, and she was a virgin. This is the origin of the custom in Israel

⁴⁰that every year the young women of Israel leave for four days to weep in commemoration of the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.