But his master replied to him, “We will not stop at a foreign city where there are no Israelites. Let’s move on to Gibeah.”

“Come on,” he said, “let’s try to reach one of these places and spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah.”

So they continued on their journey, and the sun set as they neared Gibeah in Benjamin.

They stopped to go in and spend the night in Gibeah. The Levite went in and sat down in the city square, but no one took them into their home to spend the night.

In the evening, an old man came in from his work in the field. He was from the hill country of Ephraim but was residing in Gibeah, and the men of that place were Benjaminites.

The Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, answered: “I went to Gibeah in Benjamin with my concubine to spend the night.

Citizens of Gibeah ganged up on me and surrounded the house at night. They intended to kill me, but they raped my concubine, and she died.

Now this is what we will do to Gibeah: we will go against it by lot.

We will take 10 men out of every 100 from all the tribes of Israel, and 100 out of every 1,000, and 1,000 out of every 10,000 to get provisions for the people when they go to Gibeah in Benjamin to punish them for all the horror they did in Israel.”

Hand over the perverted men in Gibeah so we can put them to death and eradicate evil from Israel.” But the Benjaminites would not obey their fellow Israelites.

Instead, the Benjaminites gathered together from their cities to Gibeah to go out and fight against the Israelites.

On that day the Benjaminites rallied 26,000 armed men from their cities, besides 700 choice men rallied by the inhabitants of Gibeah.

In the morning, the Israelites set out and camped near Gibeah.

The men of Israel went out to fight against Benjamin and took their battle positions against Gibeah.

The Benjaminites came out of Gibeah and slaughtered 22,000 men of Israel on the field that day.

That same day the Benjaminites came out from Gibeah to meet them and slaughtered an additional 18,000 Israelites on the field; all were armed men.

So Israel set up an ambush around Gibeah.

On the third day the Israelites fought against the Benjaminites and took their battle positions against Gibeah as before.

Then the Benjaminites came out against the people and were drawn away from the city. They began to attack the people as before, killing about 30 men of Israel on the highways, one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah through the open country.

Then 10,000 choice men from all Israel made a frontal assault against Gibeah, and the battle was fierce, but the Benjaminites did not know that disaster was about to strike them.

Then the Benjaminites realized they had been defeated.

The men of Israel had retreated before Benjamin, because they were confident in the ambush they had set against Gibeah.

The men in ambush had rushed quickly against Gibeah; they advanced and put the whole city to the sword.

They surrounded the Benjaminites, pursued them, and easily overtook them near Gibeah toward the east.