Study Desk

In the same year those people destroyed the Israelites who lived east of the Jordan River in the region of Gilead, where the Amorites lived. So the Israelites suffered for eighteen years.

So the Israelites cried out to the Lord , "We have sinned against you. We left our God and worshiped the Baal idols."

But now you have left me again and have worshiped other gods. So I refuse to save you again.

You have chosen those gods. So go call to them for help. Let them save you when you are in trouble."

Then the Israelites threw away the foreign gods among them, and they worshiped the Lord again. So he felt sorry for them when he saw their suffering.

So Jephthah ran away from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. There some worthless men began to follow him.

They said to him, "Come and lead our army so we can fight the Ammonites."

So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him their leader and commander of their army. Jephthah repeated all of his words in front of the Lord at Mizpah.

Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Let the people of Israel go across your land.' But the king of Edom refused. We sent the same message to the king of Moab, but he also refused. So the Israelites stayed at Kadesh.

But Sihon did not trust the Israelites to cross his land. So he gathered all of his people and camped at Jahaz and fought with Israel.

So Israel took all the land of the Amorites from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River, from the desert to the Jordan River.

"It was the Lord , the God of Israel, who forced out the Amorites ahead of the people of Israel. So do you think you can make them leave?

In a great defeat Jephthah struck them down from the city of Aroer to the area of Minnith, and twenty cities as far as the city of Abel Keramim. So the Ammonites were defeated by the Israelites.

When Jephthah saw his daughter, he tore his clothes to show his sorrow. He said, "My daughter! You have made me so sad because I made a promise to the Lord , and I cannot break it!"

Then his daughter said, "Father, you made a promise to the Lord . So do to me just what you promised, because the Lord helped you defeat your enemies, the Ammonites."

Jephthah said, "Go." So he sent her away for two months. She and her friends stayed in the mountains and cried for her because she would never marry.

When I saw that you would not help me, I risked my own life and went against the Ammonites. The Lord handed them over to me. So why have you come to fight against me today?"

they would say to him, "Say the word ‘Shibboleth.'" The men of Ephraim could not say that word correctly. So if the person from Ephraim said, "Sibboleth," the men of Gilead would kill him at the crossing. So forty-two thousand people from Ephraim were killed at that time.

Again the people of Israel did what the Lord said was wrong. So he handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.

So she ran to tell him, "He is here! The man who appeared to me the other day is here!"