²⁰ Jacob then made this vow:^[a] “If God will be with me and protect me on this journey I am making and give me food to eat and clothes to wear, ²¹ and I come back safely to my father’s house, the Lord will be my God. ²² This stone that I have set up as a sacred pillar will be the house of God. Of everything you give me, I will return a tenth part to you without fail.”

² Israel then made this vow to the Lord: “If you deliver this people into my hand, I will put their cities under the ban.”^{(A) 3} The Lord paid attention to Israel and delivered up the Canaanites,^(B) and they put them and their cities under the ban. Hence that place was named Hormah.^[a]

Chapter 30

¹ So Moses instructed the Israelites exactly as the Lord had commanded him.

Validity and Annulment of Vows. ² Moses said to the heads of the Israelite tribes, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ³ When a man makes a vow to the Lord or binds himself under oath to a pledge,^[a] he shall not violate his word, but must fulfill exactly the promise he has uttered.^(A)

⁴ “When a woman makes a vow to the Lord, or binds herself to a pledge, while still in her father’s house in her youth, ⁵ and her father learns of her vow or the pledge to which she bound herself and says nothing to her about it, then any vow or any pledge to which she bound herself remains valid. ⁶ But if on the day he learns of it her father opposes her, then any vow or any pledge to which she bound herself becomes invalid; and the Lord will release her from it, since her father opposed her.

⁷ “If she marries while under a vow or under a rash pledge to which she bound herself, ⁸ and her husband learns of it, yet says nothing to her on the day he learns it, then the vows or the pledges to which she bound herself remain valid. ⁹ But if on the day her husband learns of it he opposes her, he thereby annuls the vow she had made or the rash pledge to which she had bound herself, and the Lord will release her from it. ¹⁰ (The vow of a widow or of a divorced woman, however, any pledge to which such a woman binds herself, is valid.)

¹¹ “If it is in her husband’s house^[b] that she makes a vow or binds herself under oath to a pledge, ¹² and her husband learns of it yet says nothing to her to oppose her, then all her vows remain valid or any pledge to which she has bound herself. ¹³ But if on the day he learns of them her husband annuls them, then whatever she has expressly promised in her vows or in her pledge becomes invalid; since her husband has annulled them, the Lord will release her from them.

¹⁴ “Any vow or any pledge that she makes under oath to humble herself, her husband may either confirm or annul. ¹⁵ But if her husband, day after day, says nothing at all to her, he thereby confirms all her vows or all the pledges incumbent upon her; he has confirmed them, because on the day he learned of them he said nothing to her.

^30 [a]Jephthah made a vow to the Lord.^(A) “If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said, ³¹ “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return from the Ammonites in peace shall belong to the Lord. I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”

³² Jephthah then crossed over against the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his power. ³³ He inflicted a very severe defeat on them from Aroer to the approach of Minnith—twenty cities in all—and as far as Abel-keramin. So the Ammonites were brought into subjection by the Israelites. ³⁴ When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came out to meet him, with tambourine-playing and dancing. She was his only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her. ³⁵ When he saw her, he tore his garments and said, “Ah, my daughter! You have struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow^[b] to the Lord and I cannot take it back.”^{(B) 36} “Father,” she replied, “you have made a vow to the Lord. Do with me as you have vowed, because the Lord has taken vengeance for you against your enemies the Ammonites.” ³⁷ Then she said to her father, “Let me have this favor. Do nothing for two months, that I and my companions may go wander in the mountains to weep for my virginity.” ³⁸ “Go,” he replied, and sent her away for two months. So she departed with her companions and wept for her virginity in the mountains. ³⁹ At the end of the two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She had not had relations with any man.

It became a custom in Israel ⁴⁰ for Israelite women to go yearly to mourn the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite for four days of the year.

¹¹ and made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if you look with pity on the hardship of your servant, if you remember me and do not forget me, if you give your handmaid a male child, I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life. No razor shall ever touch his head.”^[a](A)