Judges 11:29-40

29At that time the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he went throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead, and from there he led an army against the Ammonites.

30And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. He said, “If you give me victory over the Ammonites,

31I will give to the Lord whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

32So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave him victory.

33He crushed the Ammonites, devastating about twenty towns from Aroer to an area near Minnith and as far away as Abel-keramim. In this way Israel defeated the Ammonites.

34When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter came out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. She was his one and only child; he had no other sons or daughters.

35When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. “Oh, my daughter!” he cried out. “You have completely destroyed me! You’ve brought disaster on me! For I have made a vow to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.”

36And she said, “Father, if you have made a vow to the Lord, you must do to me what you have vowed, for the Lord has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites.

37But first let me do this one thing: Let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin.”

38“You may go,” Jephthah said. And he sent her away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children.

39When she returned home, her father kept the vow he had made, and she died a virgin. So it has become a custom in Israel

40for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah’s daughter.