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all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and the land of Gilead came out and assembled together as one man before the Lord at Mizpah. 2 The leaders of all the people of the tribes of Israel presented themselves with the assembly of the people of God: four hundred thousand foot soldiers who drew the sword. 3 The Benjaminites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah.
The Israelites asked, “Tell us, how did this criminal deed happen?”
4 So the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, answered, “I and my concubine came to Gibeah of Benjamin to spend the night. 5 But the men of Gibeah rose up against me and surrounded the house I was in at night, intending to kill me. Instead, they raped my concubine until she died. 6 So I took my concubine, cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel’s inheritance, because they have committed this lewd and vile outrage in Israel. 7 Look, all you Israelites, make your judgment and decide the verdict right here and now.”
8 All the people rose as one man, and said, “None of us will go to his tent, nor will any of us return to his house. 9 But this is what we shall now do to Gibeah: We will go up against it according to lot. 10 We will take ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred out of every thousand, and a thousand out of every ten thousand, to get provisions for the troops. Then when they arrive at Gibeah of Benjamin, they will punish them for all the vileness that they have done in Israel.” 11 So all the men of Israel were united together as one man against the city.
12 The tribes of Israel sent men throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What is this terrible crime that was committed among you? 13 Now hand over these scoundrels living in Gibeah so we can put them to death and remove this evil from Israel.”
But the Benjaminites would not listen to the demands of their brothers, the Israelites. 14 Instead the Benjaminites gathered together from their cities to Gibeah to go out to fight against the Israelites. 15 On that day the Benjaminites from the cities rallied twenty-six thousand men who drew the sword, as well as seven hundred chosen men from the people of Gibeah. 16 Among all these troops there were seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.
17 The men of Israel, apart from Benjamin, were numbered at four hundred thousand men who drew the sword, each of them warriors to a man.
18 The men of Israel set out and went up to Bethel, where they inquired of God. They asked, “Which of us shall go up first to battle against the Benjaminites?”
And the Lord replied, “Judah shall go up first.”
19 The next morning, the Israelites set out and camped near Gibeah. 20 The men of Israel went out to fight against Benjamin and they established their battle positions against them at Gibeah. 21 The Benjaminites came out of Gibeah and cut down to the ground twenty-two thousand men of Israel that day. 22 But the men of Israel encouraged each other and took up their battle positions in the same place where they had stationed themselves on the first day. 23 Then the Israelites went up and wept before the Lord until the evening, and they inquired of the Lord: “Shall we again go up again to battle against the my brother the Benjaminites?”
The Lord answered, “Go up against them.”
24 So the Israelites advanced against the Benjaminites again on the second day. 25 But the Benjaminites went out against them from Gibeah this time also, and they cut down to the ground eighteen thousand more Israelite men who drew the sword.
26 Then the whole army of the Israelites went up to Bethel, and they sat there weeping before the Lord. They fasted that day until evening and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord. 27 And the Israelites inquired of the Lord. The Ark of the Testimony of God was there in those days, 28 and Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was ministering before it. They asked, “Shall we go out again to fight against the sons of our brother Benjamin, or shall we cease?”
And the Lord answered, “Go up, for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hands.”
29 So Israel set men in ambush around Gibeah. 30 Then the Israelites went up against the Benjaminites on the third day and they took up their positions against Gibeah as they had done before. 31 The Benjaminites came out against the Israelites and were drawn away from the city. They began to strike down and kill the people as before, so that about thirty men of Israel fell in the open fields and along the highways, one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah.
32 The Benjaminites said, “We are defeating them as before.”
But the Israelites said, “Let’s flee and draw them away from the city toward the highways.”
33 So all the men of Israel moved from their places and took up their positions at Baal-tamar, while the Israelite men in ambush rushed forward from their places west of Gibeah. 34 Then ten thousand chosen men from all of Israel made a frontal attack on Gibeah, and the battle was fierce. But the Benjaminites did not realise that disaster was close upon them.
35 So the Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel, and the Israelites struck down 25,100 Benjaminite men that day, all armed with swords. 36 Then the Benjaminites saw that they were defeated.
Now the men of Israel had retreated before Benjamin, because they were relying on the ambush they had set close to Gibeah. 37 The men who had been in ambush rushed quickly into Gibeah. Then they dispersed through the city and struck the whole city with the sword. 38 The men of Israel had arranged with the men of the ambush to signal with an enormous column of smoke from the city, 39 and then the men of Israel would turn in the battle. When Benjamin had begun to strike down the Israelites and had killed about thirty men, they said, “We are defeating them, as in the first battle.”
40 But when the column of smoke began to rise from the city, the Benjaminites looked behind them and saw smoke from the whole city going up into the sky. 41 Then the men of Israel turned on them, and the men of Benjamin were dismayed, for they realised that disaster was close upon them. 42 So they fled before the men of Israel toward the wilderness, but the battle overtook them, and those coming out of the cities slaughtered those between them. 43 They surrounded the Benjaminites, pursued them, and easily overran them as far as a position to the east of Gibeah. 44 So eighteen thousand men of Benjamin fell, all of them valiant warriors. 45 The rest of them turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and five thousand of them were cut down on the highways. Then they were pursued as far as Gidom, and two thousand of them were killed.
46 So all who fell of Benjamin that day were twenty-five thousand men who drew the sword, all of them valiant warriors. 47 But six hundred men turned and fled to the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and they remained at the rock of Rimmon for four months. 48 The men of Israel turned back against the Benjaminites, and struck them with the sword—the entire city, the animals, and everything else that they found. They also set on fire all the cities that remained.