BRAGADAYJAH 753

What a sad encounter that was for Jephthah! When he saw his own daughter, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas my daughter, you have brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me; for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back.” And she said unto him, “my father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which has proceeds out of thy mouth; for as much as the LORD has taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. And she said unto her father let this thing be done for me; let me alone two months that I may go up and down upon the mountain and bewail my virginity I and my fellows. So he allowed her to go for two months upon the mountain and bewail her virginity; and after that he did with her as he had vowed. And she knew no man, and it became a yearly custom in Israel for the maidens to lament the fate of Jephthah’s daughter