The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, Therefore are we turned again to you now, that you may go with us, and fight with the children of Ammon; and you shall be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.
So there was a little sort of a running feud. Jephthah sent, and he said, "Hey, why are you guys coming to fight to take away our land?" And they sent back, "Hey, we were here before you ever thought of being here. We lived here before you came and you came and took the land away from us."So he wrote back to them another message. It said, "No way. We were willing to live peaceably. You came out against us. You started the fight and we wiped you. And so the land belongs to us. We've been dwelling there all along. How come you haven't come sooner to reclaim it? Why didn't you take it then you know, if it was your land? So we settled in it. It's our land."And so they then gathered together to battle. Now, at this point Jephthah made a vow unto God. He said, "Lord if you will deliver these people of Ammon or the Ammonites into my hand giving me victory over them, then I will sacrifice unto you the first thing that comes out of the door of my house when I return home as a burnt offering unto thee."So God delivered the Ammonites into the hands of Jephthah. And he was coming home victorious, leading the armies and who should come out the door of his house then his daughter, his only child? With a tambourine and a song that she had made up of the great victories of her father and the how great of dad and everything he was. And when he saw her come out the door he said, "Oh sweetheart, you've brought grief to my soul today."And she said, "Dad, whatever you promised the Lord to do, go ahead and do." And so he told the vow that he had made and she said, "All right you know, you've made a vow to God and you're to do it but," she said, "Allow me a couple of months to go through the mountains with my friends and just sort of bewail my virginity." And so she went through the mountains bewailing her virginity for a couple of months.