And the sons of Dan raise up for themselves the graven image, and Jonathan son of Gershom, son of Manasseh, he and his sons have been priests to the tribe of the Danite, till the day of the removal of the people of the land.

when her husband got up and went after her, intending to speak lovingly to her in order to win her back. He took with him his young man servant and a pair of donkeys. When she brought him into her father's house to see him, her father was happy to have met him.

On the fourth day, they got up early in the morning and prepared to go, but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Have something to eat to keep up your strength and then you can go.”

So the two of them sat down and had a meal together. Then the girl's father said to the man, "Why not stay another night and have a good time!"

And he riseth early in the morning, on the fifth day, to go, and the father of the young woman saith, 'Support, I pray thee, thy heart;' and they have tarried till the turning of the day, and they eat, both of them.

When the man got ready to leave with his concubine and his servant, his father-in-law, the girl's father, said to him, "Look! The day is almost over! Stay another night! Since the day is over, stay another night here and have a good time. You can get up early tomorrow and start your trip home."

And his lord saith unto him, 'Let us not turn aside unto the city of a stranger, that is not of the sons of Israel, thither, but we have passed over unto Gibeah.'

And he saith to his young man, 'Come, and we draw near to one of the places, and have lodged in Gibeah, or in Ramah.'

And he said unto him - We, are passing along, from Bethlehem-judah, unto the farther side of the hill country of Ephraim, whence I am, but I have been as far as Bethlehem-judah, and now, unto the house of Yahweh, am I going, and there is no one minded to take me into a house.

although we have both straw and feed for our donkeys, and bread and wine for me, your female servant, and the young man with your servant. There is nothing we lack.”

While {they were enjoying themselves}, behold, the men of the city, {the perverse lot}, surrounded the house, pounding on the door. And they said to the old man, the owner of the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so that {we may have sex with him}."

And the men have not been willing to hearken to him, and the man taketh hold on his concubine, and bringeth her out unto them without, and they know her, and roll themselves upon her all the night, till the morning, and send her away in the ascending of the dawn;

And the sons of Benjamin hear that the sons of Israel have gone up to Mizpeh. And the sons of Israel say, 'Speak ye, how hath this evil been?'

And the man, the Levite, husband of the woman who hath been murdered, answereth and saith, 'Into Gibeah (which is to Benjamin) I have come, I and my concubine, to lodge;

And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about upon me by night, and thought to have slain me: and my concubine have they forced, that she is dead.

And I took my concubine, and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel: for they have committed lewdness and folly in Israel.

And we will take ten men of an hundred throughout all the tribes of Israel, and an hundred of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand, to fetch victual for the people, that they may do, when they come to Gibeah of Benjamin, according to all the folly that they have wrought in Israel.

And now, give up the men -- sons of worthlessness -- which are in Gibeah, and we put them to death, and we put away evil from Israel.' And the sons of Benjamin have not been willing to hearken to the voice of their brethren, the sons of Israel;

And the sons of Benjamin come out to meet the people; they have been drawn away out of the city, and begin to smite some of the people -- wounded as time by time, in the highways (of which one is going up to Beth-El, and the other to Gibeah in the field), are about thirty men of Israel.

And all the men of Israel have risen from their place, and arrange themselves at Baal-Tamar, and the ambush of Israel is coming forth out of its place, out of the meadow of Gibeah.

And they come in over against Gibeah -- ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel -- and the battle is grievous, and they have not known that the evil is striking against them.

And the sons of Benjamin see that they have been smitten -- and the men of Israel give place to Benjamin, for they have trusted unto the ambush which they had set against Gibeah,

and the ambush have hasted, and push against Gibeah, and the ambush draweth itself out, and smiteth the whole of the city by the mouth of the sword.

And the men of Israel have turned, and the men of Benjamin are troubled, for they have seen that the evil hath stricken against them --

they have compassed the Benjamites -- they have pursued them -- with ease they have trodden them down till over-against Gibeah, at the sun-rising.

And the men of Israel have turned back unto the sons of Benjamin, and smite them by the mouth of the sword out of the city, -- men unto cattle, unto all that is found; also all the cities which are found they have sent into fire.

And the men of Israel have sworn in Mizpeh, saying, 'None of us doth give his daughter to Benjamin for a wife.'

How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?

And the company send there twelve thousand men of the sons of valour, and command them, saying, 'Go -- and ye have smitten the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead by the mouth of the sword, even the women and the infants.

And this is that ye shall do: utterly destroy all the males and the women that have lain by men."

And they find out of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead four hundred young women, virgins, who have not known man by the lying of a male, and they bring them in unto the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

and Benjamin turneth back at that time, and they give to them the women whom they have kept alive of the women of Jabesh-Gilead, and they have not found for all of them so.

So the elders of the congregation said, "What should we do for the remaining [ones] for wives, since the women from Benjamin have been destroyed?"

And they said, There must be an inheritance for those of Benjamin who have escaped, so that a tribe may not be destroyed out of Israel.

Howbeit we may not give them wives of our daughters: for the children of Israel have sworn, saying, Cursed be he that giveth a wife to Benjamin.

And they command the sons of Benjamin, saying, 'Go -- and ye have laid wait in the vineyards,

and have seen, and lo, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances -- then ye have gone out from the vineyards, and caught for you each his wife out of the daughters of Shiloh, and gone to the land of Benjamin;

And if their fathers or their brothers complain to us, we will say to them, 'Allow us to have them, because we did not capture a wife for each man in the battle, and because you did not give [them] to them, {or else} you would have been guilty.'"

And the sons of Benjamin do so, and take women according to their number, out of the dancers whom they have taken violently away; and they go, and turn back unto their inheritance, and build the cities, and dwell in them.

Back in those days, Israel didn't yet have a king, so each person did whatever seemed right in his own opinion.