Judges 11-13

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

11 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, but he was the son of a harlot. Gilead was Jephthah’s father.

² And Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when his wife’s sons grew up, they thrust Jephthah out and said to him, You shall not have an inheritance in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.

³ Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and dwelt in the land of Tob; and worthless men gathered around Jephthah and went on raids with him.

⁴ And after a time, the Ammonites made war against Israel.

⁵ And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah out of the land of Tob;

⁶ And they said to Jephthah, Come and be our leader, that we may fight with the Ammonites.

⁷ But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, Did you not hate me and drive me out of my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in trouble?

⁸ And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, This is why we have turned to you now, that you may go with us and fight the Ammonites and be our head over all the citizens of Gilead.

⁹ Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, If you bring me home again to fight against the Ammonites and the Lord gives them over to me, [understand that] I will be your head.

¹⁰ And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, The Lord is witness between us, if we do not do as you have said.

¹¹ So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and leader over them. And Jephthah repeated all he had promised before the Lord at Mizpah.

¹² And Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites, saying, What have you to do with me, that you have come against me to fight in my land?

¹³ The Ammonites’ king replied to the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land [which was not true] when they came up out of Egypt [300 years before], from the Arnon even to Jabbok and to the Jordan; now therefore, restore those lands peaceably.

¹⁴ And Jephthah sent messengers again to the king of the Ammonites

¹⁵ And said to him, Thus says Jephthah, Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites.

¹⁶ But when [Israel] came up from Egypt, [they] walked through the wilderness to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh.

¹⁷ Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, Let us, we pray, pass through your land, but the king of Edom would not listen. Also they sent to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained at Kadesh.

¹⁸ Then they went through the wilderness and went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon; but they came not within the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab.

¹⁹ Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon, and Israel said to him, Let us pass, we pray you, through your land to our country.

²⁰ But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory; so Sihon gathered all his people together and encamped at Jahaz and fought with Israel.

²¹ And the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them; so Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country.

²² They possessed all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness even to the Jordan.

²³ So now the Lord God of Israel has dispossessed the Amorites from before His people Israel, and should you possess them?

²⁴ Will you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? And all the Lord our God dispossessed before us, we will possess.

²⁵ Now are you any better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel or did he ever go to war with them?

²⁶ While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities along the banks of the Arnon for 300 years, why did you not recover [your lost lands] during that time?

²⁷ So I have not sinned against you, but you are doing me wrong to war against me. The Lord, the [righteous] Judge, judge this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites.

²⁸ But the king of the Ammonites did not listen to the message Jephthah sent him.

²⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites.

³⁰ And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, If You will indeed give the Ammonites into my hand,

³¹ Then whatever or whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it or him up as a burnt offering.

³² Then Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight with them, and the Lord gave them into his hand.

³³ And from Aroer to Minnith he smote them, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-cheramim [the meadow of vineyards], with a very great slaughter. So the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.

³⁴ Then Jephthah came to Mizpah to his home, and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances! And she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

³⁵ And when he saw her, he rent his clothes and said, Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are the cause of great trouble to me; for I have opened my mouth [in a vow] to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.

³⁶ And she said to him, My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what you have vowed, since the Lord has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, the Ammonites.

³⁷ And she said to her father, Let this thing be done for me; let me alone two months, that I may go and wander upon the mountains and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.

³⁸ And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months, and she went with her companions and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.

³⁹ At the end of two months she returned to her father, who ^[a]did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. She never mated with a man. This became a custom in Israel—

⁴⁰ That the daughters of Israel went yearly to mourn the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.

12 The men of Ephraim were summoned together and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, Why did you cross over to fight with the Ammonites and did not summon us to go with you? We will burn your house over you with fire.

² And Jephthah said to them, I and my people were in a severe conflict with the Ammonites, and I when I called you, you did not rescue me from their hands.

³ And when I saw that you would not rescue me, I put my life in my hands and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the Lord delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me?

⁴ Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim; and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim because they had said, You Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh.

⁵ And the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan before the Ephraimites; and when any of those Ephraimites who had escaped said, Let me go over, the men of Gilead said to him, Are you an Ephraimite? If he said, No,

⁶ They said to him, Then say Shibboleth; and he said, Sibboleth, for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and slew him at the fords of the Jordan. And there fell at that time 42,000 of the Ephraimites.

⁷ Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.

⁸ And after him Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel.

⁹ And he had thirty sons and thirty daughters whom he gave [to husbands] outside his tribe, and thirty daughters [daughters-in-law] whom he brought in from outside his tribe for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years.

¹⁰ Then Ibzan died and was buried at Bethlehem.

¹¹ After him Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel, and he judged Israel ten years.

¹² Then Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried at Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

¹³ And after him Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel.

¹⁴ And he had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkey colts; and he judged Israel eight years.

¹⁵ Then Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite died, and was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.

13 And the Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.

² And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children.

³ And the ^[b]Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Behold, you are barren and have no children, but you shall become pregnant and bear a son.

⁴ Therefore beware and drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean.

⁵ For behold, you shall become pregnant and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from birth, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines.

⁶ Then the woman went and told her husband, saying, A ^[c]Man of God came to me and his face was like the face of the Angel of God, to be greatly and reverently feared. I did not ask him from where he came, and he did not tell me his name.

⁷ But he said to me, Behold, you shall become pregnant and bear a son, and now drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.

⁸ Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, O Lord, let the Man of God whom You sent come again to us and teach us what we shall do with the child that shall be born.

⁹ And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her.

¹⁰ And the woman ran in haste and told her husband and said to him, Behold, the Man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.

¹¹ And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the Man and said to him, Are you the Man who spoke to this woman? And he said, I am.

¹² And Manoah said, Now when your words come true, how shall we manage the child, and what is he to do?

¹³ And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Let the mother beware of all that I told her.

¹⁴ She may not eat of anything that comes from the grapevine, nor drink wine or strong drink nor eat any unclean thing. All that I commanded her let her observe.

¹⁵ And Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, Pray, let us detain you that we may prepare a kid for you.

¹⁶ And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Though you detain me, I will not eat of your food, but if you make ready a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord. For Manoah did not know that he was the Angel of the Lord.

¹⁷ And Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, What is your name, so that when your words come true, we may do you honor?

¹⁸ And the Angel of the Lord said to him, Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?^(A)

¹⁹ So Manoah took the kid with the cereal offering and offered it upon a rock to the Lord, the Angel working wonders, while Manoah and his wife looked on.

²⁰ For when the flame went up toward the heavens from the altar, the Angel of the Lord ascended in the altar flame. And Manoah and his wife looked on, and they fell on their faces to the ground.

²¹ The Angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah or to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the Angel of the Lord.

²² And Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.

²³ But his [sensible] wife said to him, If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not have received a burnt offering and a cereal offering from our hands, nor have shown us all these things or now have announced such things as these.

²⁴ And the woman [in due time] bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew and the Lord blessed him.

²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in Mahaneh-dan [the camp of Dan] between Zorah and Eshtaol.