9 Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the children of Ammon, and the Lord delivers them before me, will I be your head?”
10 The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will be witness between us. Surely we will do what you say.”
11 Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them. Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord in Mizpah.
12 Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, “What do you have to do with me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?”
13 The king of the children of Ammon answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel took away my land, when he came up out of Egypt, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and to the Jordan. Now therefore restore that territory again peaceably.”
14 Jephthah sent messengers again to the king of the children of Ammon;
15 and he said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: Israel didn’t take away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon,