Jephthah and Other Mysteries

JEPHTHAH. Edom and Moab, pitched their weary tent Beyond the bank of Ammon; and they sent Messengers thence to Sihon, Heshbon’s king, The lord of Amorites, and said to him: I prithee, let us pass to our own place Through thy dominions: but his crafty mind, Fearing some treachery, that was not, save In his ill mind that thought it, did determine To gather all his people, and to pitch Tents hostile in the plains before Jahaz. And there he fought with Israel ; but God Delivered Sihon to our hands, and all That followed him: whom therefore we destroyed With many slaughters: so we dispossessed _ The envious Amorites, and had their land, A land whose borders were the Ammon brook On the one hand, and on the other Jabbok And Jordan: we, who slew the Amorites. What hast thou, king of Ammon, here to do? How thinkst thou to inherit their possessions That the Lord God hath given us? Go to! Chemosh your god hath given you your land ; Possess that peaceably; but whomsoever The Lord our God shall drive before our spears, His lands we will possess. And thou, O king, Art thou now better than that bloody Balak Whose iron hand was upon Moab? He, Fought he against us, while three hundred years We dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and Aroer And her white cities, and by Ammon’s coast? D 33