26. Why didn’t you take back this territory while the Israelites lived in Heshbon and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the towns along the branches of the Arnon for three hundred years?
27. I haven’t sinned against you, but you’re doing me wrong by making war against me. Let the Lord, who is the judge, decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites!"
28. But the Ammonite king refused to listen to the message that Jephthah sent to him.
29. Then the Lord’s spirit came on Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh, then through Mizpah in Gilead, and from there he crossed over to the Ammonites.
30. Jephthah made a solemn promise to the Lord: "If you will decisively hand over the Ammonites to me,
31. then whatever comes out the doors of my house to meet me when I return victorious from the Ammonites will be given over to the Lord. I will sacrifice it as an entirely burned offering."
32. Jephthah crossed over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord handed them over to him.
33. It was an exceptionally great defeat; he defeated twenty towns from Aroer to the area of Minnith, and on as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were brought down before the Israelites.
34. But when Jephthah came to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was an only child; he had no other son or daughter except her.