Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. Gilead's wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. "You are not going to get any inheritance in our family," they said, "because you are the son of another woman." So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him.
Jephthah was wandering when he came to the watering hole. Crawly was there pissing off Pollution or Pestilence. Whatever the fuck she called herself these days.
"Dumbass! You really think that I am convinced that a demon really cares about humans! Why do you send the humans away from this well! They are to drink it and get sick! Dumbass demon! I will tell Lord Beelzebub and she will have your head on a stick at the gates of Hell as a warning to all other demons who dare to fuck with me!" Pollution snarled from inside the well where Crawly had locked her inside.
"You aren't going to tell Beelzebub jack shit! Plus I only want the humans alive because it isa little hard to get a promotion when they are all dead because of a coughing epidemic you are trying to spread through unsanitary water practices!" Crawly rolled his eyes. Honestly the future horseman was more annoying than the demons. He would take Hastur and Ligur over this bitch any day. He then looked up and watched Jephthah fall over and scream when he saw his eyes. Crawly was used to this and rolled his eyes.
"Shut up would you?" He muttered.
"Your-your eyes!" He pointed to his own.
"Take your nasty unwashed fingers away from the eyeball! Do you have any idea how unsanitary that is?" Crawly groaned.
"No little man! Put your fingers in your eyes and give yourself pink eye! Do it!" Called Pestilance down from the well.
"Shut up!" Crawly growled and banged on the wood over the well.
"Is there someone in there?"
"Don't worry about it kid. Say what are you doing all the way out here? It isn't safe. Especially at this hour."
"My brothers drove me away. My mother is a prostitute you see."
"Life sucks kid. But I am terribly sorry to hear it."
"Thanks sir!"
"Well don't say that!" Crawly added a hiss for good measure. He couldn't let the other demons ever find out he was giving pep talks to teens. That was more of wank wings Aziraphale's thing.
As if on cue Aziraphale ran up behind Jephthah out of breathe. He put his hand on his shoulder to balance himself from falling over and continued to breathe like madman who was getting chased by a bear. Wheezing and everything. Crawly rolled his eyes.
"Sorry Jephthah I just heard about what happened and all and that is terrible. I am so sorry my poor dear and I was coming to offer you to stay at my place so you don't have to be all alone out here in the wilderness and-" He stopped when he saw Crawly standing there and heard angry shouting coming from the inside of the well.
"Crawly." Aziraphale said with harshness in his eyes. Crawly didn't understand why that made him feel like shit but here he was.
"Happy to see you too angel."
"And just what do you think you are doing with Jephthah."
"I wasn't doing anything with him. Trust me."
"And why should I trust you?"
"Would I lie to you?"
"Well obviously. You are a-well you know-honestly I can not believe you! Foul fiends! Tempting ones beat down by society. Shame on you."
"Well, firstly demons do this sort of thing all the time so I don't know why this is coming as a shock to you. Secondly I wasn't even tempting him. He just happened to be out here when I was. Whatever he did I had nothing to do with it."
"A likely story foul beast."
"For Satan's sake Aziraphale. Could you throw out blind accusations when there is evidence instead of blindly and stupidly blaming me for stuff I didn't even do?"
"Well, you are a-"
"I know what I am! You don't have to repeat it! Take the boy! I wanted nothing with him in the first place and I still don't!"
Aziraphale huffed angrily and turned to poor Jephthah who looked more than a little confused.
"Did Crawly hurt you in any way?"
"Who?"
"Him." Aziraphale jabbed rudely at Crawly as he let out an annoyed snort and rolled his eyes. So much for angels being merciful and full of love. After all they had done together Aziraphale still didn't trust him. He acted like he was about to throw the young man down the well and start a living offering for Satan. Surely he had though Aziraphale would have seen enough of his actions to know he would never do this. Especially not to a human that had angelic love stench that could only be from Aziraphale all over their aurora. But he thought wrong.
"Oh no. We were just talking. His eyes kind of scared me a bit at the beginning though. Why? Is he dangerous or something?" Jephthah said eyes widening and stepping even closer to Aziraphale and further away from Crawly.
Great! So now not only was Aziraphale taking a piss on whatever understanding they had between each other but was also freaking the kid out for no reason. Honestly, it was as if he thought Crawly would do something crazy and attack them both with Hellfire. He would never fight Aziraphale in an unfair fight like that. Worst off he thought he had made that clear but the stupid angel seemed to have not gotten the message. He was smart enough to have understood this based on all the scripts and languages the angel was able to memorize so the angel was honestly just being a bigoted prick. He hadn't ever attacked Aziraphale. They had had plenty of moments where he could have. No. Aziraphale had to have got he wouldn't attack him without any reason to.
"I see. Well as I mentioned Jephthah you will be staying at my place and I will make sure no FOUL BEASTS attack you." Aziraphale said glaring at Crawly.
"I'm not Asmodeus! I wasn't going to hurt him!" Crawly shouted almost with desperation as the two walked off to where Aziraphale lived. He shouldn't care what an angel thought of him. It was even a good thing for a demon to have an angel fear him. But why did it hurt so much when Aziraphale thought he was a danger to him?
Pestilence cackled beneath him and began to mock him for getting stood up by an angel.
"Aw! Is the little demon going to cry? Poor pathetic demon! Should I even call you that? No! You are weak! Demons aren't weak! Humans aren't even weak! You are weaker than sand! More pathetic than dirt! Dumb sad demon! Boohoo hoo!"
"Shut up! At least I'm not trapped in a well!"
He then felt someone shove him off the wood and fell headfirst into the sand. Pestilence took a shit-stained boot to his face and bent down so close Crawly could see the maggots in her teeth.
"Perhaps I should make something clear you little fool! You can't trap me! I poisoned the water more! I outsmarted you! Soon the whole town will be under my control and mad with disease!"
Crawly snapped his fingers and the water became the cleanest in all of the dessert.
"You were saying?"
Pestilence growled angrily and picked a piece of wood off from the lid and began to beat Crawly with it. He only smiled and snapped his fingers again cleaning the filth off of her. She freaked out and ran fast to get back to filth. She needed it like oxygen and not being in it would certainly end her.
"Whose weak now bitch!" He called after her while laughing. He miricled the cuts and bruises he had sustained from the stupid horseman. What an asshole.
Some time later, when the Ammonites were fighting against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob. "Come," they said, "be our commander, so we can fight the Ammonites."Jephthah said to them, "Didn't you hate me and drive me from my father's house? Why do you come to me now, when you're in trouble?" The elders of Gilead said to him, "Nevertheless, we are turning to you now; come with us to fight the Ammonites, and you will be head over all of us who live in Gilead." Jephthah answered, "Suppose you take me back to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gives them to me—will I really be your head?" The elders of Gilead replied, "The Lord is our witness; we will certainly do as you say." He still wasn't sure so he went to ask Aziraphale about it to which Aziraphale told him to go and help.
"A little forgiveness goes a long way my dear. I believe in you! You can do this."
So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them. And he repeated all his words before the Lord in Mizpah. Then Jephthah sent messengers to the Ammonite king with the question: "What do you have against me that you have attacked my country?" The king of the Ammonites answered Jephthah's messengers, "When Israel came up out of Egypt, they took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, all the way to the Jordan. Now give it back peaceably." Jephthah sent back messengers to the Ammonite king, saying:"This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites. But when they came up out of Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea[a] and on to Kadesh. Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, 'Give us permission to go through your country,' but the king of Edom would not listen. They sent also to the king of Moab, and he refused. So Israel stayed at Kadesh. "Next they traveled through the wilderness, skirted the lands of Edom and Moab, passed along the eastern side of the country of Moab, and camped on the other side of the Arnon. They did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was its border. "Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon, and said to him, 'Let us pass through your country to our own place.' Sihon, however, did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. He mustered all his troops and encamped at Jahaz and fought with Israel. "Then the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and his whole army into Israel's hands, and they defeated them. Israel took over all the land of the Amorites who lived in that country, capturing all of it from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the desert to the Jordan.
"Now since the Lord, the God of Israel, has driven the Amorites out before his people Israel, what right have you to take it over? Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess. Are you any better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever quarrel with Israel or fight with them? For three hundred years Israel occupied Heshbon, Aroer, the surrounding settlements and all the towns along the Arnon. Why didn't you retake them during that time? I have not wronged you, but you are doing me wrong by waging war against me. Let the Lord, the Judge, decide the dispute this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites."
The king of Ammon, however, paid no attention to the message Jephthah sent him.
Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering." Stupid human. Impulsive as always.
Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.
When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break."
"My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry."
"You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.
From this comes the Israelite tradition that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.