Seeking Wives at the Shiloh Festival

16

Then the elders of the congregation said, “How shall we provide wives for those who remain, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?”

17

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

18

However we may not give them wives of our daughters, for the children of Israel had sworn, saying, ‘Cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin.’”

19

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.”

20

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

21

and see, and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards, and each man catch his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

22

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 for each man his wife in battle, neither did you give them to them, otherwise you would now be guilty.’”

23

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.

24

The children of Israel departed there at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from there every man to his inheritance.

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