1
The men of Ephraim were gathered together, and passed northward; and they said to Jephthah, Why did you pass over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didn`t call us to go with you? we will burn your house on you with fire.
2
Jephthah said to them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, you didn`t save me out of their hand.
3
When I saw that you didn`t save me, I put my life in my hand, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and Yahweh delivered them into my hand: why then are you come up to me this day, to fight against me?
4
Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim; and the men of Gilead struck Ephraim, because they said, You are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim, [and] in the midst of Manasseh.
5
The Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. It was so, that when [any of] the fugitives of Ephraim said, Let me go over, the men of Gilead said to him, Are you an Ephraimite? If he said, No;
6
then said they to him, Say now Shibboleth; and he said Sibboleth; for he couldn`t manage to pronounce it right: then they laid hold on him, and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. There fell at that time of Ephraim forty-two thousand.