CHAPTER 12
1 And, lo! dissension rose in Ephraim; for they, that passed toward the north, said to Jephthah, Why wentest thou to battle against the sons of Ammon, and wouldest not call us, that we should go with thee. Therefore we shall burn thine house.
2 To which he answered, Great strife was to me and to my people against the sons of Ammon, and I called you, that ye should give help to me, and you would not do so.
3 Which thing I saw, and putted my life in mine hands; and I passed to the sons of Ammon, and the Lord betook them into mine hands; what have I deserved, that ye rise together against me into battle?
4 Therefore when all the men of Gilead were called to Jephthah, he fought against Ephraim; and [the] men of Gilead smote Ephraim; for he said, Gilead is fugitive, either exiled, from Ephraim, and in the midst of Ephraim, and of Manasseh.
5 And the men of Gilead occupied the fords of Jordan, by which Ephraim should turn again. And when a man, fleeing of the number of Ephraim, had come to the fords, and had said, I beseech, that ye suffer me pass; men of Gilead said to him, Whether thou art a man of Ephraim? And when he had said, I am not,
6 they asked him, Say thou therefore Shibboleth, which is interpreted, an ear of corn. Which answered, Sibboleth, and he might not bring forth an ear of corn by the same letter. And anon they took and strangled him in that passing over of Jordan; and two and forty thousand men of Ephraim felled down in that time.
7 And so Jephthah, a man of Gilead, deemed Israel six years; and he died, and was buried in his city Gilead.
8 Ibzan of Bethlehem, that had thirty sons, and so many daughters, deemed Israel after Jephthah;
9 which daughters he sent out, and gave them to husbands, and he took wives to his sons of the same number, and he brought them into his house; and Ibzan deemed Israel seven years;
10 and he died, and was buried in Bethlehem.
11 Whose successor was Elon of Zebulun; and he deemed Israel ten years;
12 and he was dead, and buried in Zebulun.
13 After him Abdon, the son of Hillel, of Pirathon, deemed Israel;
14 the which Abdon had forty sons, and of them were thirty sons, going upon seventy colts of she-asses, and Abdon deemed Israel eight years;
15 and he died, and was buried in Pirathon, in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of Amalek.