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“I summoned you, but you refused to come!” Jephthah retorted. “You failed to help us in our time of need, so I risked my life and went to battle without you, and the Lord helped me to conquer the enemy. Is that anything for you to fight us about?”

Then Jephthah, furious at the taunt of Ephraim that the men of Gilead were mere outcasts[a] and the scum of the earth, mobilized his army and attacked the army of Ephraim.

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Footnotes

  1. Judges 12:4 mere outcasts, literally, “fugitives of Ephraim.”

Jephthah answered, “I and my people were engaged in a great struggle with the Ammonites, and although I called, you didn’t save me out of their hands. When I saw that you wouldn’t help, I took my life in my hands(A) and crossed over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave me the victory(B) over them. Now why have you come up today to fight me?”

Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead(C) and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites struck them down because the Ephraimites had said, “You Gileadites are renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh.(D)

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