Gibeah

Tzela, Elef, Y'vusi (that is, Yerushalayim), Giv'at and Kiryat - fourteen cities, together with their villages. This is the inheritance of the descendants of Binyamin according to their families.

But his master said to him, "We won't go into a city of foreigners which doesn't belong to the people of Isra'el. We'll go on across to Giv'ah."

He said to his servant, "Let's go, and we'll get to one of those places; we'll stay in Giv'ah or Ramah."

So they went on and kept traveling, until the sun set on them near Giv'ah, which belongs to Binyamin.

There they turned off the road to go and stay in Giv'ah. He went in and sat down in the city's open space, since no one had offered his home for them to spend the night.

In time, at nightfall, an old man came from his work in the field. He was from the Efrayim hills and was staying in Giv'ah, although the residents were of Binyamin.

The Levi, the husband of the murdered woman, answered, "I came to Giv'ah, which belongs to Binyamin, I and my concubine, to stay the night;

and the men in Giv'ah attacked me and surrounded the house I was staying in at night. They wanted to kill me, but instead they raped my concubine to death.

What we will do now to Giv'ah is this: we'll draw lots,

we'll take ten men out of each hundred throughout all the tribes of Isra'el, and a hundred out of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand to collect food for the others. When these come to Giv'ah in Binyamin, they will avenge the crime that was committed."

Turn over these good-for-nothings who are in Giv'ah at once, so that we can execute them and rid Isra'el of such evil." But the people of Binyamin refused to obey the order of their kinsmen the people of Isra'el.

Instead the people of Binyamin gathered themselves together from their cities and went to Giv'ah to fight the people of Isra'el.

On that day there were 26,000 men from Binyamin armed with swords, besides the inhabitants of Giv'ah, who numbered 700 specially chosen men.

So the army of Isra'el got up in the morning and set up their camp near Giv'ah.

Then the army of Isra'el went out to attack Binyamin and set up their battle line in front of Giv'ah.

But the army of Binyamin came out of Giv'ah and slaughtered the army of Isra'el; on that day 22,000 men fell.

But Binyamin went out against them from Giv'ah the second day and slaughtered the army of Isra'el; 18,000 men armed with swords fell.

Isra'el hid some men around Giv'ah,

and on the third day Isra'el attacked the army of Binyamin and took a position against Giv'ah as they had the other times.

Again the army of Binyamin went out against the people. Lured away from the city, they began attacking and killing some of the people, as they had the other times - they killed about thirty men of Isra'el in the countryside and on the roads, one of which goes up to Beit-El and the other to Giv'ah.

Ten thousand men chosen out of all Isra'el came over to attack Giv'ah, and the combat was intense. But the army of Binyamin didn't know that they were about to be defeated.

and the people of Binyamin realized that they had been beaten. The men of Isra'el, trusting the ones they had put in place to ambush Binyamin, gave ground to the men of Binyamin.

Then the men who had been lying in wait rushed in on Giv'ah, drew their swords and destroyed the city.

They surrounded the men of Binyamin, chased them and trampled them down across from Giv'ah on the east.

Sha'ul too went home to Giv'ah, accompanied by warriors whose hearts God had touched.