The Story of War with Ammon's Kids

Judges 11:1-33

Some Mokawa Native Americans were protesting in Beth's town. They had signs like, "Give us back our land" and "Don't let the white devil keep what he has stolen." It all made Beth very confused.
That evening, while helping to prepare dinner, Beth spoke to her mother about it. "Mother," she said, "did white people take the Native Americans' land away from them?"
"Yes, Dear One," said her mother, wrapping golden ears of corn in foil and putting them in the oven. "But that was a long time ago."
"But isn't stealing wrong?" asked Beth as she set the table, making sure that her father's after-dinner cigar was in its proper place. "Shouldn't we give the land back to them?"
Beth's mother got the tortillas and other frajita fixings of the refrigerator. "It is wrong to steal, Dear One, but the Bible says that we don't need to give the Indians back their land. Here, let me tell you a story about that."
And this is the story she told:

One day Jephthah, a strong, nice man, got thrown out of his home town of Gilead by his half-brothers just because his mother was a woman who let men put their penises in her for money. Jephthah ran away to the land of Tob where he got a bunch of conceited guys to follow him.
After a while, Ammon's kids went to war with the Israelites. The old people of Gilead went to get Jephthah to help them fight. They said to him, "Why don't you come back and join the army to help fight Ammon's kids? We'll make you a captain."
When he heard this, Jephthah said, "I thought you hated me and threw me out of town? Where do you get off coming to me for help?"
The old people from Gilead answered, "We thought we'd come to you and make you our leader so that you could fight Ammon's kids."
"If you bring me home," said Jephthah, "and I beat them, I get to be in charge of you?"
"That's the deal," said the old people, "we promise."
So Jephthah went with them.
When he got back to Gilead, Jephthat sent people to talk to the king of Ammon's kids. They said, "Where do you get off attacking us?"
The king of Ammon's kids said, "Hey, you guys took our land and we're just trying to get it back."
The messengers brought the answer to Jephthah, and he sent them back with a reply.
"It's not our fault that we took your land," said the messengers to the king. "If you people had let us pass through on our way out of Egypt instead of treating us mean, we wouldn't have had to take over your land. In fact, God gave us your land because of the way you behaved. If your god Chemosh had given you some land, wouldn't you take it? Besides, that was three hundred years ago. If you were so upset, why didn't you say something sooner?"
The king of Ammon's kids didn't listen to any of this. Instead, he kept fighting.
God was in the neighborhood so Jephthah said to him, "If you will let me beat Ammon's kids, then I'll set on fire whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I get home."
That sounded like a good deal to God so Jephthah's side won the war after killing a whole big bunch of people.
And that's how Ammon's kids were beaten by the Israelites.

Beth thought about this for a moment. "I guess that the Native Americans are lucky that we let them live here at all," Beth said as she finished setting the table.
"That's right, Dear One," said her mother. "Now it's almost time for dinner. Run along and make your father's evening Manhattan before he comes to the table."
Before she went to make the drink, Beth smiled and hugged her mother. All her questions had been answered.