^{10 Ref} The congregation sent there twelve thousand men of the most valiant, and commanded them, saying, Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones.

^{11 Ref} This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman who has lain by man.

^{12 Ref} They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young virgins, who had not known man by lying with him; and they brought them to the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

^{13 Ref} The whole congregation sent and spoke to the children of Benjamin who were in the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them.

^{14 Ref} 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.

^{15 Ref} The people repented them for Benjamin, because that Yahweh had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

¹⁶ Then the elders of the congregation said, How shall we do for wives for those who remain, seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?

^{17 Ref} They said, There must be an inheritance for those who are escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel.

^{18 Ref} However we may not give them wives of our daughters, for the children of Israel had sworn, saying, Cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin.

^{19 Ref} They said, Behold, there is a feast of Yahweh 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 Ref} and see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come you out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

^{22 Ref} 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, else would you now be guilty.

^{23 Ref} The children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of those who danced, whom they carried off: and they went and returned to their inheritance, and 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.

^{25 Ref} In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.