Judges 12

¹ The men of Ephraim mobilised; they crossed the Jordan, making for Zaphon, and said to Jephthah, ‘Why did you go to fight the Ammonites without asking us to go with you? We shall burn you and your house.’

² Jephthah answered them, ‘My people and I were hard put to it, the Ammonites pressed us hard. I summoned you to help me, but you did not rescue me from their hands.

³ When I saw that no one came to my help, I took my life in my hands and marched against the Ammonites, and Yahweh handed them over to me. Why then today come up against me to make war on me?’

⁴ Then Jephthah mustered all the men of Gilead and joined battle with Ephraim, and the men of Gilead routed Ephraim, because these kept saying, ‘You are no more than deserters from Ephraim, you Gileadites in the heart of Ephraim and Manasseh’.

⁵ Then Gilead cut Ephraim off from the fords of the Jordan, and whenever an Ephraimite fugitive said, ‘Let me cross’, the men of Gilead asked him, ‘Are you an Ephraimite?’ If he answered ‘No’,

⁶ they said, ‘Then say Shibboleth’. He would say ‘Sibboleth’, since he could not pronounce the word correctly. Thereupon they seized and slaughtered him by the fords of the Jordan. There perished in this way forty-two thousand men of Ephraim.

⁷ Jephthah was judge in Israel for six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died, and was buried in his own town, Mizpah in Gilead.

⁸ After him, Ibzan of Bethlehem[*a] was judge in Israel.

⁹ He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He gave his daughters in marriage outside his clan, and brought in thirty brides from outside for his sons. He was judge in Israel for seven years.

¹⁰ Then Ibzan died and was buried in Bethlehem.

¹¹ After him, Elon of Zebulun was judge in Israel. He was judge in Israel for ten years.

¹² Then Elon of Zebulun died and was buried at Elon in the land of Zebulun.

¹³ After him, Abdon son of Hillel of Pirathon was judge in Israel.

¹⁴ He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys’ colts. He was judge in Israel for eight years.

¹⁵ Then Abdon son of Hillel of Pirathon died, and he was buried at Pirathon in the mountain country of Ephraim, in the land of Shaalim.