19. 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.’
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. They possessed all the border of the Amorites, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness even to the Jordan.
23. So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and should you possess them?
24. 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.
25. 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?
26. Israel lived in Heshbon and its towns, and in Aroer and its towns, and in all the cities that are along the side of the Arnon for three hundred years! Why didn’t you recover them within that time?
27. Therefore I have not sinned against you, but you do me wrong to war against me. May The Lord the Judge be judge today between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.”
28. However the king of the children of Ammon didn’t listen to the words of Jephthah which he sent him.
29. Then the Lord’s Spirit 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.
30. Jephthah vowed a vow to the Lord, and said, “If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand,
31. then it shall be, that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.”
32. So Jephthah passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hand.
33. He struck them from Aroer until you come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and to Abelcheramim, with a very great slaughter. So the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
34. Jephthah came to Mizpah to his house; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter.
35. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I can’t go back.”
36. She said to him, “My father, you have opened your mouth to the Lord; do to me according to that which has proceeded out of your mouth, because the Lord has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, even on the children of Ammon.”
37. She said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me. Leave me alone two months, that I may depart and go down on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.”