2 Samuel 10:1

¹Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and encamped against Jabesh Gilead; and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a covenant with us, and we will serve you.”

²Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “On this condition I will make it with you, that all your right eyes be gouged out. I will make this dishonor all Israel.”

³The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Give us seven days, that we may send messengers to all the borders of Israel; and then, if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you.”

¹After this, Nahash the king of the children of Ammon died, and his son reigned in his place. ²David said, “I will show kindness to Hanun the son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent messengers to comfort him concerning his father. David’s servants came into the land of the children of Ammon to Hanun to comfort him.

³But the princes of the children of Ammon said to Hanun, “Do you think that David honors your father, in that he has sent comforters to you? Haven’t his servants come to you to search, to overthrow, and to spy out the land?” ⁴So Hanun took David’s servants, shaved them, and cut off their garments in the middle at their buttocks, and sent them away. ⁵Then some people went and told David how the men were treated. He sent to meet them; for the men were greatly humiliated. The king said, “Stay at Jericho until your beards have grown, and then return.”

⁶When the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves odious to David, Hanun and the children of Ammon sent one thousand talents^[+] of silver to hire chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia, out of Aram-maacah, and out of Zobah. ⁷So they hired for themselves thirty-two thousand chariots, and the king of Maacah with his people, who came and encamped near Medeba. The children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities, and came to battle. ⁸When David heard of it, he sent Joab with all the army of the mighty men. ⁹The children of Ammon came out, and put the battle in array at the gate of the city; and the kings who had come were by themselves in the field.

¹⁰Now when Joab saw that the battle was set against him before and behind, he chose some of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians. ¹¹The rest of the people he committed into the hand of Abishai his brother; and they put themselves in array against the children of Ammon. ¹²He said, “If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you are to help me; but if the children of Ammon are too strong for you, then I will help you. ¹³Be courageous, and let’s be strong for our people and for the cities of our God. May the LORD do that which seems good to him.”

¹⁴So Joab and the people who were with him came near to the front of the Syrians to the battle; and they fled before him. ¹⁵When the children of Ammon saw that the Syrians had fled, they likewise fled before Abishai his brother, and entered into the city. Then Joab came to Jerusalem.

¹⁶When the Syrians saw that they were defeated by Israel, they sent messengers and called out the Syrians who were beyond the River,^[+] with Shophach the captain of the army of Hadadezer leading them. ¹⁷David was told that, so he gathered all Israel together, passed over the Jordan, came to them, and set the battle in array against them. So when David had put the battle in array against the Syrians, they fought with him. ¹⁸The Syrians fled before Israel; and David killed of the Syrian men seven thousand charioteers and forty thousand footmen, and also killed Shophach the captain of the army. ¹⁹When the servants of Hadadezer saw that they were defeated by Israel, they made peace with David and served him. The Syrians would not help the children of Ammon any more.

¹²Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, “What do you have to do with me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?”

¹³The king of the children of Ammon answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel took away my land when he came up out of Egypt, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and to the Jordan. Now therefore restore that territory again peaceably.”

¹⁴Jephthah sent messengers again to the king of the children of Ammon; ¹⁵and he said to him, “Jephthah says: Israel didn’t take away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon; ¹⁶but when they came up from Egypt, and Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh, ¹⁷then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Please let me pass through your land;’ but the king of Edom didn’t listen. In the same way, he sent to the king of Moab, but he refused; so Israel stayed in Kadesh. ¹⁸Then they went through the wilderness, and went around the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and they encamped on the other side of the Arnon; but they didn’t come within the border of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab. ¹⁹Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, ‘Please let us pass through your land to my place.’ ²⁰But Sihon didn’t trust Israel to pass through his border; but Sihon gathered all his people together, and encamped in Jahaz, and fought against Israel. ²¹The LORD, the God of Israel, delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they struck them. So Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country. ²²They possessed all the border of the Amorites, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness even to the Jordan. ²³So now the LORD, the God of Israel, has dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and should you possess them? ²⁴Won’t you possess that which Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whoever the LORD our God has dispossessed from before us, them will we possess. ²⁵Now are you anything better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them? ²⁶Israel lived in Heshbon and its towns, and in Aroer and its towns, and in all the cities that are along the side of the Arnon for three hundred years! Why didn’t you recover them within that time? ²⁷Therefore I have not sinned against you, but you do me wrong to war against me. May the LORD the Judge be judge today between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.”

²⁸However, the king of the children of Ammon didn’t listen to the words of Jephthah which he sent him.

⁷The LORD’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the children of Ammon. ⁸They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. ⁹The children of Ammon passed over the Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was very distressed.