Seeking Wives at the Shiloh Festival

16

And the elders of the company say, `What do we do to the remnant for wives--for the women have been destroyed out of Benjamin?'

17

And they say, `A possession of an escaped party is to Benjamin, and a tribe is not blotted out from Israel;

18

and we--we are not able to give to them wives out of our daughters, for the sons of Israel have sworn, saying, Cursed is he who is giving a wife to Benjamin.'

19

And they say, `Lo, a festival of Jehovah is in Shiloh, from time to time, which is on the north of Beth-El, at the rising of the sun, by the highway which is going up from Beth-El to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.'

20

And they command the sons of Benjamin, saying, `Go--and ye have laid wait in the vineyards,

21

and have seen, and lo, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances--then ye have gone out from the vineyards, and caught for you each his wife out of the daughters of Shiloh, and gone to the land of Benjamin;

22

and it hath been, when their fathers or their brethren come in to plead unto us, that we have said unto them, Favour us by them, for we have not taken to each his wife in battle, for ye--ye have not given to them at this time that ye are guilty.'

23

And the sons of Benjamin do so, and take women according to their number, out of the dancers whom they have taken violently away; and they go, and turn back unto their inheritance, and build the cities, and dwell in them.

24

And the sons of Israel go up and down thence at that time, each to his tribe, and to his family; and they go out thence each to his inheritance.

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