34 Jephthah came to Mizpah, to his house, and behold his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and dancing. She was his only child; he did not have a son or daughter except her.
35 And the moment he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Ah! My daughter, you have caused me to bow down, and you have become my trouble. I made an oath to Yahweh, and I cannot take it back.”
36 She said to him, “My father, you made an oath to Yahweh. Do to me according to what has gone out from your mouth, since Yahweh gave vengeance to you against your enemies, the Ammonites.”
37 And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: grant me two months so that I may go wander on the mountains and lament over my virginity, I and my companions.
38 And he said, “Go.” He sent her away for two months, and she went with her friends, and she lamented over her virginity on the mountains.
39 At the end of the two months she returned to her father, and he did to her according to his vow; and she did not sleep with a man. And it became an annual custom in Israel
40 for the daughters of Israel to go and lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite for forty days of the year.