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Israel's Apostasy and Jephthah's Tragic Deliverance

Judges 10:6-11:40

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Chapter 10
6 And the sons of Israel added to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, and they served the Baals and the Ashtaroth and the gods of Aram and the gods of Sidon and the gods of Moab and the gods of the sons of Ammon and the gods of the Philistines. And they abandoned the LORD and did not serve him. 7 And the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the sons of Ammon. 8 And they oppressed and crushed the sons of Israel for eighteen years—the sons of Israel who were across the Jordan in the land of the Amorite, which was in Gilead. 9 The sons of Ammon crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah and Benjamin and the house of Ephraim, and they oppressed Israel greatly. 10 And the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD, saying, "We have sinned against you, for we have abandoned our God and served the Baals." 11 The LORD said to the sons of Israel, “Did I not deliver you from Egypt and from the Amorites and from the sons of Ammon and from the Philistines?” 12 The Sidonians and Amalek and Maon oppressed you, and you cried out to me, and I saved you from their hand. 13 And you abandoned me and served other gods; therefore I will not save you anymore. 14 Go and cry out to the gods whom you chose them for; they will save you in the time of your distress. 15 The sons of Israel said to the LORD, "We have sinned. Do to us what is good in your eyes. But please deliver us today." 16 And they removed the foreign gods from their midst and served the LORD, and his soul grew short in the toil of Israel. 17 The sons of Ammon cried out and encamped in Gilead, and the sons of Israel gathered and encamped at Mizpah. 18 And the people, the rulers of Gilead, said one man to his fellow, "Who is the man who will begin to fight against the sons of Ammon? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead."
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Chapter 11
1 Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor. He was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead fathered Jephthah. 2 Gilead's wife bore sons to him, and when the woman's sons grew up, they drove out Jephthah and said to him, "You shall not inherit in the house of our father, for you are the son of another woman." 3 And Jephthah fled from his brothers and dwelt in the land of Tob, and worthless men gathered to Jephthah, and they went out with him. 4 Some days later, the sons of Ammon fought with Israel. 5 And it came about when the sons of Ammon fought with Israel that the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob. 6 And they said to Jephthah, "Come, and you will be to us as a captain, and you will fight against the sons of Ammon." 7 And Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, "Did you not hate me and drive me out from my father's house? Why have you come to me now that you are in distress?" 8 And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "Therefore come back with us now, and you will go with us and fight against the sons of Ammon, and you will be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead." 9 And Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, "If you are bringing me back to fight against the sons of Ammon, and the LORD gives them before me, I will be your head." 10 The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "The LORD will be witness between us if we do not do according to your word." 11 Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people set him over them as head and as captain. And Jephthah spoke all his words before the LORD at Mizpah. 12 And Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the sons of Ammon, saying, "What do you have to do with me, that you have come to me to fight in my land?" 13 And the king of the sons of Ammon said to the messengers of Jephthah, "Israel took my land when he went up from Egypt, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan. Now return it peaceably." 14 Jephthah sent more messengers to the king of the sons of Ammon. 15 He said to him, "Jephthah said: 'Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the sons of Ammon.'" 16 for when they went up from Egypt, Israel traveled through the wilderness to the Sea of Reeds and came to Kadesh. 17 Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, "Please let us pass through your land." But the king of Edom would not listen. He also sent to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. And Israel dwelt in Kadesh. 18 He went through the wilderness and around the land of Edom and the land of Moab. He came from the rising of the sun to the land of Moab and encamped across the Arnon. They did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab. 19 And Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon, and said to him, "Let Israel pass through your land to their place." 20 But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. Sihon gathered all his people and encamped at Jahaz, and he fought with Israel. 21 And the LORD God of Israel gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they struck them, and Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the ones dwelling in that land. 22 And they possessed all the border of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan. 23 Now the LORD God of Israel dispossessed the Amorite from before his people Israel—and you, you will possess it. 24 Will you not possess what Chemosh your god causes you to inherit? And all that the LORD our God has dispossessed from before us, we will possess. 25 Now, are you any better than Balak son of Sihon, king of Moab? Did you fight against the people of Israel? 26 When Israel sat in Heshbon and its daughters and in Aroer and its daughters and in all the cities that are alongside the Arnon three hundred years—why did you not deliver at that time? 27 And I, I have not sinned against you, but you have done evil to me to fight against me. The LORD, the Judge, will judge today between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ammon. 28 But the king of the sons of Ammon did not listen to the words of Jephthah that he sent him. 29 The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed through to the sons of Ammon. 30 And Jephthah vowed a vow to the LORD and said, "If you will give the sons of Ammon into my hand," 31 And it will be that whoever comes out the door of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon shall be the LORD's, and I will offer that one up as a burnt offering. 32 Jephthah crossed over to the sons of Ammon to fight against them, and the LORD gave them into his hand. 33 And he struck them from Aroer as far as the approach to Minnith—twenty cities—and as far as Abel Keramim, with a very great blow. And the sons of Ammon were subdued before the sons of Israel. 34 Jephthah came to Mizpah, to his house, and behold, his daughter went out to meet him with timbrels and with dances, and she was his only child—there was none to him from her, son or daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his garments and said, "Ah, my daughter, you have crushed me! You have crushed me! You are among my troublers, and I opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot go back." 36 And she said to him, "My father, you have opened your mouth to the LORD; do to me according to what came out of your mouth, since the LORD has avenged you on your enemies, on the sons of Ammon." 37 And she said to Abihah, "Let this thing be done for me: spare me two months, and I will go and go down upon the mountains and weep over my virginities, I and my companion." 38 And he said yes to her, and he sent her away for two months. And she went, she and her companions, and she wept over her virginity on the mountains. 39 And it was at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he fulfilled for her his vow that he had vowed, and she had not known a man. And it became a statute in Israel. 40 From year to year the daughters of Israel would go to lament to the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.