CHAPTER 12
Then the men
of Ephraim
assembled
and crossed the Jordan
to Zaphon.
They said
to Jephthah,
“Why
have you crossed over
to fight
the Ammonites
without
calling
us to go
with you?
We will burn your house
down
with you inside!”
But Jephthah
replied,
“My people
and I
had
a serious
conflict
with the Ammonites,
and when I called,
you did not
deliver
me
out of their hands.
When I saw
that
you would not
deliver me,
I risked
my life
and crossed over
to
the Ammonites,
and the LORD
delivered them
into my hand.
Why then
have you come
today
to fight
against me?”
Then Jephthah
gathered
all
of the men
of Gilead
and fought
against
Ephraim.
And the men
of Gilead
struck them down
because
the Ephraimites
had said,
“You
Gileadites
are fugitives
in Ephraim,
living in the territories
of Ephraim
and Manasseh."
The Gileadites
captured
the fords
of the Jordan
leading to Ephraim,
and
whenever
a fugitive
from Ephraim
would say,
“Let me cross over,”
the Gileadites
would ask him,
“Are you
an Ephraimite?”
If he answered,
“No,”
they told him,
“Please
say
Shibboleth.”
If he said,
“Sibboleth,”
because he could
not
pronounce
it correctly,
they seized
him and killed
him at
the fords
of the Jordan.
So at that
time
42,000
Ephraimites
were killed.
He had
thirty
sons,
as well as thirty
daughters
whom he gave in marriage
to men outside his clan;
and for his sons
he brought back
thirty
wives
from
elsewhere.
Ibzan judged
Israel
seven
years.
He had
forty
sons
and thirty
grandsons,
who rode
on
seventy
donkeys.
And he judged
Israel
eight
years.
Then Abdon
son
of Hillel,
from Pirathon,
died,
and he was buried
at Pirathon
in
Ephraim,
in the hill country
of the Amalekites.