The Levite said to him, "We are traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That's where I'm from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I'm heading home. But no one has invited me into their home.

So he brought him to his house and fed the donkeys. They washed their feet and had a meal.

They were having a good time, when suddenly some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, surrounded the house and kept beating on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, "Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him."

So the man, the master of the house, went out to them, and said, No, my brothers, do not this evil thing; this man has come into my house, and you are not to do him this wrong.

The men refused to listen to him, so the Levite grabbed his concubine and made her go outside. They raped her and abused her all night long until morning. They let her go at dawn.

And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place.

(And the children of Israel went up and wept before the LORD until even, and asked counsel of the LORD, saying, Shall I go up again to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother? And the LORD said, Go up against him.)

And Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, stood before it in those days,) saying, Shall I add yet to go forth to war with the sons of Benjamin my brother, or shall I desist? And Jehovah will say, Go up; for to-morrow I will give him into thy hand.

And the sons of Benjamin will say, They are smitten before us as at first. And the sons of Israel said, We will flee, and draw him away from the city to the highways.

They surrounded Benjamin,pursuing him from Nohah, treading him down even to the front of Gibeah, from the rising of the sun.

And they will turn and flee to the desert, to the rock Rimmon: and they will glean in the highways five thousand men; and they will pursue after him even to Gidom, and will strike of him two thousand men.

"Why, LORD God of Israel," they asked him, "is one tribe missing from Israel?"

And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel that came not up with the congregation unto the LORD? For they had made a great oath concerning him that came not up to the LORD to Mizpeh, saying, He shall surely be put to death.

And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins who had not known a man intimately; and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did what seemed right to him.