Benjamin

The children of Israel went up and wept before the LORD until evening; and they asked of the LORD, saying, “Shall I again draw near to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother?” The LORD said, “Go up against him.”

The children of Israel came near against the children of Benjamin the second day.

Benjamin went out against them out of Gibeah the second day, and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men; all these drew the sword.

and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days), saying, “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 of the people, as at other times, in the highways, of which one goes up to Bethel, and the other to Gibeah, in the field, about thirty men of Israel.

The children of Benjamin said, “They are struck down before us, as at the first.” But the children of Israel said, “Let us flee, and draw them away from the city to the highways.”

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

So the children of Benjamin saw that they were struck; for the men of Israel gave place to Benjamin, because they trusted the ambushers whom they had set against Gibeah.

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 struck down before us, as in the first battle.”

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

There fell of Benjamin eighteen thousand men; all these were men of valor.

So that all who fell that day of Benjamin were twenty-five thousand men who drew the sword; all these were men of valor.

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.”

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

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

Benjamin returned at that time; and they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh Gilead: and yet so they weren’t enough for them.

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

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

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

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.’”

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

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.

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.