The whole hill country will be yours; though it is a forest, you can clear it and it will be entirely yours. You can conquer the Canaanites, though they have chariots with iron-rimmed wheels and are strong.”
Joshua replied to them,“ Since you have so many people, go up into the forest and clear out a place to live in the land of the Perizzites and Rephaites, for the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you.”
Jephthah assembled all the men of Gilead and they fought with Ephraim. The men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because the Ephraimites insulted them, saying,“ You Gileadites are refugees in Ephraim, living within Ephraim’s and Manasseh’s territory.”The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan River opposite Ephraim. Whenever an Ephraimite fugitive said,“ Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him,“ Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said,“ No,”then they said to him,“ Say‘ Shibboleth!’” If he said,“ Sibboleth”( and could not pronounce the word correctly), they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.
