Judges 21

21 ¹ Now the men of Israel had sworn an oath at Mizpah: "None of us will give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife."

² So the people came to Bethel and sat there before our Father until evening, lifting up their voices and weeping bitterly. ³ They cried out, "Why, our Father, God of Israel, has this happened in Israel, that today one tribe should be missing from Israel?"

⁴ The next day the people rose early, built an altar there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. ⁵ Then the people of Israel asked, "Which of all the tribes of Israel did not come up in the assembly to our Father?" For they had bound themselves with a solemn oath that whoever did not come up to our Father at Mizpah must surely be put to death.

⁶ And the people of Israel grieved for Benjamin their brother. They said, "Today one tribe is cut off from Israel. ⁷ What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by our Father not to give them any of our daughters?"

⁸ Then they asked, "Which of the tribes of Israel did not come up to our Father at Mizpah?" And it turned out that no one from Jabesh-gilead had come to the camp, to the assembly. ⁹ For when the people were counted, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was there.

¹⁰ So the assembly sent twelve thousand of their bravest warriors there with this command: "Go and strike down the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the sword, including the women and the little ones. ¹¹ This is what you are to do: devote to destruction every male, and every woman who has slept with a man."

¹² Among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young women who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, in the land of Canaan.

¹³ Then the whole assembly sent word to the Benjaminites who were at the rock of Rimmon, and they proclaimed peace to them. ¹⁴ So Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women they had kept alive from Jabesh-gilead; but there were still not enough for them.

¹⁵ The people grieved for Benjamin, because our Father had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

¹⁶ Then the elders of the assembly said, "What shall we do for wives for those who remain, since the women of Benjamin have been destroyed?" ¹⁷ They said, "There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe is not wiped out from Israel. ¹⁸ Yet we cannot give them wives from our own daughters." For the people of Israel had sworn, "Cursed is anyone who gives a wife to Benjamin."

¹⁹ So they said, "Look, there is the yearly feast of our Father at Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah."

²⁰ And they instructed the Benjaminites, "Go and hide in the vineyards, ²¹ and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to join the dances, rush out of the vineyards and each of you seize a wife from the young women of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. ²² And when their fathers or brothers come to complain to us, we will tell them, 'Be gracious to them for our sake, since we did not capture a wife for each man in battle, and you yourselves did not give them to them; otherwise you would now be guilty.'"

²³ So the Benjaminites did this. They took wives for their number from the dancers they carried off, then went back to their inheritance, rebuilt the cities, and settled in them. ²⁴ At that time the people of Israel departed from there, each to his own tribe and family; everyone went out from there to his own inheritance.

²⁵ In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.