⁶ So the people went out into the field against Israel: and the battle was in the forest of Ephraim.

¹⁸ but the hill-country shall be yours; for though it is a forest, you shall cut it down, and the goings out of it shall be yours; for you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.

¹⁵ Joshua said to them, If you are a great people, go up to the forest, and cut down for yourself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim; since the hill-country of Ephraim is too narrow for you.

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.