20. But Sihon refused to let Israel pass through his territory. He gathered all his soldiers, and they encamped at Jahaz and fought Israel.
21. But the Lord, the God of Israel, delivered Sihon and his entire army into the power of Israel, who defeated them and occupied all the land of the Amorites who lived in that region.
22. They occupied all of the Amorite territory from the Arnon to the Jabbok and the wilderness to the Jordan.
23. Now, then, it was the Lord, the God of Israel, who dispossessed the Amorites for his people, Israel. And you are going to dispossess them?
24. Should you not take possession of that which your god Chemosh gave you to possess, and should we not take possession of all that the Lord, our God, has dispossessed for us?
25. Now, then, are you any better than Balak, son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever quarrel with Israel or make war against them?
26. Israel has dwelt in Heshbon and its villages, Aroer and its villages, and all the cities on the banks of the Arnon for three hundred years. Why did you not recover them during that time?
27. As for me, I have not sinned against you, but you wrong me by making war against me. Let the Lord, who is judge, decide this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites!’”
28. But the king of the Ammonites paid no heed to the message Jephthah sent him.
29. The spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and through Mizpah of Gilead as well, and from Mizpah of Gilead he crossed over against the Ammonites.
30. Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. “If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said,
31. “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return from the Ammonites in peace shall belong to the Lord. I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”
32. Jephthah then crossed over against the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his power.
33. He inflicted a very severe defeat on them from Aroer to the approach of Minnith—twenty cities in all—and as far as Abel-keramin. So the Ammonites were brought into subjection by the Israelites.
34. When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came out to meet him, with tambourine-playing and dancing. She was his only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her.
35. When he saw her, he tore his garments and said, “Ah, my daughter! You have struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow to the Lord and I cannot take it back.”