17. They sent messengers to the king of Edom and said, “Please, let us go through your country.” But the king of Edom refused. They also sent messengers to the king of Moab, but he wouldn't let them cross his country either. And so the Israelites stayed at Kadesh.
18. A little later, the Israelites set out into the desert, going east of Edom and Moab, and camping on the eastern side of the gorge of the River Arnon. The Arnon is the eastern border of Moab, and since the Israelites didn't cross it, they didn't even set foot in Moab.
19. The Israelites sent messengers to the Amorite King Sihon of Heshbon. “Please,” they said, “let our people go through your country to get to our own land.”
20. Sihon didn't think the Israelites could be trusted, so he called his army together. They set up camp at Jahaz, then they attacked the Israelite camp.
21. But the Lord God helped Israel defeat Sihon and his army. Israel took over all of the Amorite land where Sihon's people had lived,
22. from the River Arnon in the south to the River Jabbok in the north, and from the desert in the east to the River Jordan in the west.
23. The messengers also told the king of Ammon that Jephthah had said:The Lord God of Israel helped his nation get rid of the Amorites and take their land. Now do you think you're going to take over that same territory?
24. If Chemosh your god takes over a country and gives it to you, don't you have a right to it? And if the Lord takes over a country and gives it to us, the land is ours!
25. Are you better than Balak the son of Zippor? He was the king of Moab, but he didn't quarrel with Israel or start a war with us.
26. For three hundred years, Israelites have been living in Heshbon and Aroer and the nearby villages, and in the towns along the Arnon gorge. If the land really belonged to you Ammonites, you wouldn't have waited until now to try to get it back.
27. I haven't done anything to you, but it's certainly wrong of you to start a war. I pray that the Lord will show whether Israel or Ammon is in the right.
28. But the king of Ammon paid no attention to Jephthah's message.
29. Then the Lord's Spirit took control of Jephthah, and Jephthah went through Gilead and Manasseh, raising an army. Finally, he arrived at Mizpah in Gilead, where
30. he promised the Lord, “If you will let me defeat the Ammonites
31. and come home safely, I will sacrifice to you whoever comes out to meet me first.”
32. From Mizpah, Jephthah attacked the Ammonites, and the Lord helped him defeat them.
33. Jephthah and his army destroyed the twenty towns between Aroer and Minnith, and others as far as Abel-Keramim. After that, the Ammonites could not invade Israel any more.
34. When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, the first one to meet him was his daughter. She was playing a tambourine and dancing to celebrate his victory, and she was his only child.
35. “Oh!” Jephthah cried. Then he tore his clothes in sorrow and said to his daughter, “I made a sacred promise to the Lord, and I must keep it. Your coming out to meet me has broken my heart.”
36. “Father,” she said, “you made a sacred promise to the Lord, and he let you defeat the Ammonites. Now, you must do what you promised, even if it means I must die.