Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a brave warrior. His mother was a prostitute, but Gilead was his father.

So the Israelites marched toward the Benjaminites the next day.

The Benjaminites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah. Then the Israelites said, “Explain how this wicked thing happened!”

The Ammonites assembled and camped in Gilead; the Israelites gathered together and camped in Mizpah.

The Benjaminites came from their cities and assembled at Gibeah to make war against the Israelites.

The Israelites attacked the Benjaminites the next day; they took their positions against Gibeah just as they had done before.

The Israelites were subject to King Eglon of Moab for eighteen years.

That day God humiliated King Jabin of Canaan before the Israelites.

When the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help because of Midian,

It was some time after this when the Ammonites fought with Israel.

Jephthah sent messengers back to the Ammonite king

All you Israelites, make a decision here!”

The Israelites got up the next morning and moved against Gibeah.

So they commanded the Benjaminites, “Go hide in the vineyards,

The men of Benjamin, however, did not conquer the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. The Jebusites live with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this very day.

The Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, because Sisera had nine hundred chariots with iron-rimmed wheels, and he cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.

The Lord said to the Israelites, “Did I not deliver you from Egypt, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines,

Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people from the east covered the valley like a swarm of locusts. Their camels could not be counted; they were as innumerable as the sand on the seashore.

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their armies. There were about fifteen thousand survivors from the army of the eastern peoples; a hundred and twenty thousand sword-wielding soldiers had been killed.

They ruthlessly oppressed the Israelites that eighteenth year – that is, all the Israelites living east of the Jordan in Amorite country in Gilead.