--- title: "Jephthah Defeats Ephraim" description: "Then the men of Ephraim assembled and crossed the Jordan to Zaphon. They said to..." image: "" book: "Judges" bookId: "JDG" testament: "old" startChapter: 12 startVerse: 1 endChapter: 12 endVerse: 7 coversChapters: [12] aiTitle: "Jephthah Defeats Ephraim" aiDescription: "Then the men of Ephraim assembled and crossed the Jordan to Zaphon. They said to..." hasAiStory: true location: "Jordan" persons: ["Jephthah","Ephraimites","Ammonites","God","Gileadites","Israel","Manasseh"] hashtags: ["judgment","war","deliverance","betrayal"] genre: "history" readingTime: 2 type: "adaptive" slug: "JDG/jephthah-defeats-ephraim" canonicalId: "JDG.12.1-12.7" chronologicalOrder: 421 relatedSlugs: [] prevSlug: "JDG/jephthahs-tragic-vow" nextSlug: "JDG/ibzan-elon-and-abdon" --- Then the men of Ephraim assembled and crossed the Jordan to Zaphon. They said to [Jephthah](/persons/jephthah), “Why have you crossed over to fight the [Ammonites](/persons/ammonites) without calling us to go with you? We will burn your house down with you inside!” But Jephthah replied, “My people and I had a serious conflict with the Ammonites, and when I called, you did not save me out of their hands. When I saw that you would not save me, I risked my life and crossed over to the Ammonites, and the [LORD](/persons/god) delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come today to fight against me?” Jephthah then gathered all the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. And the men of Gilead struck them down because the [Ephraimites](/persons/ephraimites) had said, “You [Gileadites](/persons/gileadites) are fugitives in Ephraim, living in the territories of Ephraim and [Manasseh](/persons/manasseh).” The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a fugitive from Ephraim would say, “Let me cross over,” the Gileadites would ask him, “Are you an Ephraimite?”
If he answered, “No,” they told him, “Please say Shibboleth.”
If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce it correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. So at that time 42,000 Ephraimites were killed. Jephthah judged [Israel](/persons/israel) six years, and when he died, he was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.

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