¹ And the men of Ephraim say unto him, `What `is' this thing thou hast done to us -- not to call for us when thou didst go to fight with Midian?' and they strive with him severely;

⁴¹ And, lo, all the men of Israel are coming unto the king, and they say unto the king, `Wherefore have they stolen thee -- our brethren, the men of Judah?' (and they bring the king and his household over the Jordan, and all the men of David with him).

¹ And the men of Ephraim are called together, and pass over northward, and say to Jephthah, `Wherefore has thou passed over to fight against the Bene-Ammon, and on us hast not called to go with thee? thy house we burn over thee with fire.'

² And Jephthah saith unto them, `A man of great strife I have been (I and my people) with the Bene-Ammon, and I call you, and ye have not saved me out of their hand,

³ and I see that thou art not a saviour, and I put my life in my hand, and pass over unto the Bene-Ammon, and Jehovah giveth them into my hand -- and why have ye come up unto me this day to fight against me?'

⁴ And Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead, and fighteth with Ephraim, and the men of Gilead smite Ephraim, because they said, `Fugitives of Ephraim `are' ye Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim -- in the midst of Manasseh.'

⁵ And Gilead captureth the passages of the Jordan to Ephraim, and it hath been, when `any of' the fugitives of Ephraim say, `Let me pass over,' and the men of Gilead say to him, `An Ephramite thou?' and he saith, `No;'

⁶ that they say to him, `Say, I pray thee, Shibboleth;' and he saith, `Sibboleth,' and is not prepared to speak right -- and they seize him, and slaughter him at the passages of the Jordan, and there fall at that time, of Ephraim, forty and two chiefs.

² For provocation slayeth the perverse, And envy putteth to death the simple,

⁴ And I have seen all the labour, and all the benefit of the work, because for it a man is the envy of his neighbour. Even this `is' vanity and vexation of spirit.

⁵ Do ye think that emptily the Writing saith, `To envy earnestly desireth the spirit that did dwell in us,'

⁶ and greater grace he doth give, wherefore he saith, `God against proud ones doth set Himself up, and to lowly ones He doth give grace?'