Judges 20:4-34

⁴So the husband of the woman who had been killed replied, “My slave wife and I came to Gibeah city, wanting to stay there that night.

⁵That evening, the men of Gibeah came to attack me. They surrounded the house where I was staying and wanted to have sex with me and then kill me. They raped and abused my slave wife all night, and she died.

⁶I took her body home and cut it into pieces. Then I sent one piece to each area of Israel, because I wanted you all to know about this wicked and disgraceful/shameful thing that has been done here in Israel.

⁷So now, all you Israeli people, speak, and tell me what you think should be done!”

⁸All the people stood up, and in unison said, “None of us will go home! Not one of us will return to his house!

⁹This is what we must do to the people of Gibeah. First, we will ◄cast lots/throw marked stones► to determine which group should attack them.

¹⁰We will choose ◄one tenth/one from every ten► of the men from all the Israeli tribes. Those men will go and find food for the men who will go to attack the people of Gibeah. Then the other men will go to Gibeah to ◄pay the people back/punish them► for this terrible thing that they have done here in Israel.”

¹¹And all the Israeli people agreed that the people of Gibeah should be punished.

¹²Then the Israeli men sent messengers throughout the tribe of Benjamin. They demanded, “Do you realize that some of your men have done a very evil thing?

¹³Bring those wicked men to us, in order that we can execute them. By doing that, we will be doing what should be done because of this evil thing that has happened in Israel.” But the people of the tribe of Benjamin did not pay attention to their fellow Israelis.

¹⁴The men of the tribe of Benjamin left their cities and gathered at Gibeah to fight the other Israelis.

¹⁵In that one day the men of the tribe of Benjamin recruited 26,000 soldiers who knew how to fight using swords. They also chose/recruited 700 men from Gibeah.

¹⁶From all those soldiers there were 700 men who were left-handed, and each of them could sling a stone at a target that was very small and as narrow as a hair, and the stone always hit the target!

¹⁷There were 400,000 men from the other Israeli tribes who had swords.

¹⁸Those other Israelis went up to Bethel and asked God, “Which tribe should be the first to attack the men from the tribe of Benjamin?” Yahweh answered, “ The men from the tribe of Judah should go first.”

¹⁹The next morning, the Israeli men went and set up their tents near Gibeah.

²⁰Then they went to fight against the men from the tribe of Benjamin, and stood in their positions for fighting a battle, facing Gibeah.

²¹The men of the tribe of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and fought against them, and they killed 22,000 Israeli men on that day.

²²Late that afternoon, the remaining Israeli men went to the place of worship and cried until the sun set. Then they asked Yahweh, “Should we attack the men of the tribe of Benjamin again, even though they are our fellow Israelis?” Yahweh replied, “Yes, attack them again.” So the Israeli men encouraged each other.

²⁴The next day they again stood in their positions for fighting, just like they had done on the previous day.

²⁵The men of the tribe of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and attacked the Israelis, and killed 18,000 more of their men.

²⁶In the afternoon, all the people of Israel who had not been killed again went to Bethel. There they sat down and cried to Yahweh, and they ◄fasted/abstained from eating food► until it was evening. They brought some offerings which they burned completely on the altar, and they also brought some offerings to maintain fellowship with Yahweh.

²⁷At that time, the Sacred Chest that contained the stone tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments was there at Bethel. A priest named Phinehas, the son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron, often stood in front of that chest and talked with Yahweh. While he stood there on that day, he asked Yahweh, “Shall we go again to fight against our fellow Israelis from the tribe of Benjamin, or shall we stop fighting against them?” Yahweh answered, “Go again tomorrow, because tomorrow I will enable you to defeat them.”

²⁹So the next day, 10,000 of the Israeli men ◄set up ambushes/went to hide► in the fields around Gibeah.

³⁰The other Israeli men went and stood in their positions for fighting a battle just like they had done on the previous days.

³¹When the men of the tribe of Benjamin came out of the city to fight against them, the Israeli men retreated away from the city, and the men of the tribe of Benjamin pursued them. The men of the tribe of Benjamin killed many Israelis, like they had done before. They killed about thirty Israelis. They killed some in the fields, and they killed some on the road that went to Bethel and on the road that went to Gibeah.

³²The men of the tribe of Benjamin said, “We are defeating them like we did before!” But then Israeli men did what they had planned. The main group of Israeli men retreated a short distance from the city, to trick the men of Gibeah and cause them to pursue the Israeli men along the roads outside the city.

³³The main group of Israeli men left their positions and retreated, and then they stood in their battle positions again at a place named Baal-Tamar.

³⁴Then while the men of Gibeah were running out of the city toward them, the other 10,000 Israelis came out from the places where they had been hiding, west of Gibeah. They were men who had come from all parts of Israel. There was a very big battle. But the men of the tribe of Benjamin did not know that they were about to suffer a disastrous defeat.