Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said, “What is there between you and me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?”
So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them, and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.
The king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel, on coming from Egypt, took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan; now, therefore, restore it peaceably.”
Jephthah said to them, “My people and I were engaged in conflict with the Ammonites who oppressed us severely. But when I called you, you did not deliver me from their hand.