Yet there is both straw and feed for our donkeys, and there is bread and wine also for me, and for your female servant, and for the young man who is with your servants. There is no lack of anything."

And the old man said, "Peace be to you. I will take care of all your needs; however, do not spend the night in the square."

But the men wouldn't listen to him: so the man laid hold of his concubine, and brought her out to them. And they raped her and abused her all night until the morning, and when the day began to dawn they let her go.

Her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; and behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold.

He said to her, "Get up, and let us go." But no one answered. Then he took her up on the donkey; and the man rose up, and went to his place.

When he had come into his house, he took a knife, and took hold of his concubine and divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.

Then all the children of Israel went out, and the congregation was assembled as one man, from Dan even to Beersheba, with the land of Gilead, to the LORD at Mizpah.

The leaders of all the people, even of all the tribes of Israel, presented themselves in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand footmen who drew sword.

I took my concubine, and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of the inheritance of Israel; for they have committed wickedness and disgrace in Israel.

All the people arose as one man, saying, "None of us will go to his tent, neither will any of us return to his house.

and we will take ten men of one hundred throughout all the tribes of Israel, and one hundred of one thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand, to get food for the people, that when they come to Gibeah of Benjamin, they may do to it according to all the disgrace that they have committed in Israel."

So all the men of Israel gathered against the city, united as one man.

Now therefore deliver up the men, the wicked men who are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death, and put away evil from Israel." But Benjamin would not listen to the voice of their brothers, the children of Israel.

The children of Benjamin were numbered on that day out of the cities twenty-six thousand men who drew the sword, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah, who were numbered seven hundred chosen men.

The children of Israel rose up in the morning, and encamped against Gibeah.

The men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin; and the men of Israel set the battle in array against them at Gibeah.

The children of Benjamin came forth out of Gibeah, and destroyed down to the ground of the Israelites on that day Twenty-two thousand men.

The people, the men of Israel, encouraged themselves, and set the battle again in array in the place where they set themselves in array the first day.

The children of Israel asked of the LORD (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days,

and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days), "Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease?" The LORD said, "Go up; for tomorrow I will deliver him into your hand."

The children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day, and set themselves in array against Gibeah, as at other times.

The children of Benjamin went out against the people, and were drawn away from the city; and they began to strike and kill some of the people, as at other times, on the highways, of which one goes up to Bethel, and the other to Gibeah, in the field, about thirty men of Israel.

All the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and set themselves in array at Baal Tamar. And the men of Israel in ambush rushed out of their place, even out of Maareh Geba.

The LORD struck Benjamin before Israel; and the children of Israel destroyed of Benjamin that day twenty-five thousand one hundred men: all armed with swords.

The ambushers hurried, and rushed on Gibeah; and the ambushers drew themselves along, and struck all the city with the edge of the sword.

The men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; for they said, "Surely they are defeated before us, as in the first battle."

But when the cloud began to arise up out of the city in a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them; and behold, the whole city went up in smoke into the sky.

The men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were terrified; for they saw that disaster had come on them.

Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel to the way of the wilderness; but the battle overtook them; and those who came out of the cities destroyed them in its midst.

They turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon: and they killed on the highways five thousand men, and followed hard after them to Gidom, and struck down two thousand men.

But six hundred men turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and stayed in the rock of Rimmon four months.

The men of Israel turned again on the children of Benjamin, and struck them with the edge of the sword, both the entire city, and the livestock, and all that they found: moreover all the cities which they found they set on fire.

Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying, "There shall not any of us give his daughter to Benjamin as wife."

They said, "LORD God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that there should be today one tribe lacking in Israel?"

It happened on the next day that the people rose early, and built there an altar, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

The children of Israel said, "Who is there among all the tribes of Israel who did not come up in the assembly to the LORD?" For they had made a great oath concerning anyone who did not come up to the LORD to Mizpah, saying, "He shall surely be put to death."

The children of Israel grieved for Benjamin their brother, and said, "There is one tribe cut off from Israel this day.

They said, "What one is there of the tribes of Israel who did not come up to the LORD to Mizpah?" Behold, no one came to the camp from Jabesh Gilead to the assembly.

For when the people were numbered, behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead there.

They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man; and they brought them to the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

The whole congregation sent and spoke to the children of Benjamin who were in the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them.

The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a gap in the tribes of Israel.

They said, "There must be an inheritance for those who are escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel.

They said, "Behold, there is a feast of the LORD from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah."

They commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, "Go and lie in wait in the vineyards,

and watch. If the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards, and each man catch his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

It shall be, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we will say to them, 'Grant them graciously to us, because we didn't take wives for each man in battle, neither did you give them to them, otherwise you would now be guilty.'"

The children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of those who danced, whom they carried off. They went and returned to their inheritance, built the cities, and lived in them.

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.