15. "Jephthah says this: Israel did not take the land of Moab, nor the land of the sons of Ammon.
16. But when they ascended together from Egypt, he walked through the desert as far as the Red Sea, and he went into Kadesh.
17. And he sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, 'Permit me to pass through your land.' But he was not willing to agree to his petition. Likewise, he sent to the king of Moab, who also refused to offer him passage. And so he delayed in Kadesh,
18. and he circled around the side of the land of Edom and the land of Moab. And he arrived opposite the eastern region of the land of Moab. And he made camp across the Arnon. But he was not willing to enter the borders of Moab. (Of course, Arnon is the border of the land of Moab.)
19. And so Israel sent messengers to Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who was living at Heshbon. And they said to him, "Permit me to cross through your land as far as the river."
20. But he, too, despising the words of Israel, would not permit him to cross through his borders. Instead, gathering an innumerable multitude, he went out against him at Jahaz, and he resisted strongly.
21. But the Lord delivered him, with his entire army, into the hands of Israel. And he struck him down, and he possessed all the land of the Amorite, the inhabitant of that region,
22. with all its parts, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok, and from the wilderness even to the Jordan.
23. Therefore, it was the Lord, the God of Israel, who overthrew the Amorites, by means of his people Israel fighting against them. And now you wish to possess his land?
24. Are not the things that your god Chemosh possesses owed to you by right? And so, what the Lord our God has obtained by victory falls to us as a possession.
25. Or are you, perhaps, better than Balak, the son of Zippor, the king of Moab? Or are you able to explain what his argument was against Israel, and why he fought against him?
26. And though he has lived in Heshbon, and its villages, and in Aroer, and its villages, and in all the cities near the Jordan for three hundred years, why have you, for such long a time, put forward nothing about this claim?
27. Therefore, I am not sinning against you, but you are doing evil against me, by declaring an unjust war against me. May the Lord be the Judge and the Arbiter this day, between Israel and the sons of Ammon."
28. But the king of the sons of Ammon was not willing to agree to the words of Jephthah that he commissioned by the messengers.