JEPHTHAH.
Edom and Moab, pitched their weary tent
Beyond the bank of Ammon; and they sent
Messengers thence to Sihon, Heshbon’s king,
The lord of Amorites, and said to him:
I prithee, let us pass to our own place
Through thy dominions: but his crafty mind,
Fearing some treachery, that was not, save
In his ill mind that thought it, did determine
To gather all his people, and to pitch
Tents hostile in the plains before Jahaz.
And there he fought with Israel ; but God
Delivered Sihon to our hands, and all
That followed him: whom therefore we destroyed
With many slaughters: so we dispossessed _
The envious Amorites, and had their land,
A land whose borders were the Ammon brook
On the one hand, and on the other Jabbok
And Jordan: we, who slew the Amorites.
What hast thou, king of Ammon, here to do?
How thinkst thou to inherit their possessions
That the Lord God hath given us? Go to!
Chemosh your god hath given you your land ;
Possess that peaceably; but whomsoever
The Lord our God shall drive before our spears,
His lands we will possess. And thou, O king,
Art thou now better than that bloody Balak
Whose iron hand was upon Moab? He,
Fought he against us, while three hundred years
We dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and Aroer
And her white cities, and
by Ammon’s coast?
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