7
What shall we do for wives for those that remain, seeing we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters for wives?
8
And they said, Is there anyone of the tribes of Israel that did not come up to Mizpeh to the LORD? And they found that no one from Jabeshgilead had come to the camp nor to the assembly.
9
For the people were numbered, and, behold,
there were none of the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead there.
10
Then the congregation sent there twelve thousand men of the most valiant and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of the sword with the women and the children.
11
And this
is the thing that ye shall do, Ye shall utterly destroy every male and every woman that has lain with a man.
12
And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead four hundred young virgins that had known no man by lying with any male, and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which
is in the land of Canaan.
13
Then the whole congregation sent
some to speak to the sons of Benjamin that
were in the rock of Rimmon and to call peaceably unto them.
14
And those of Benjamin had returned at that time; and they gave them as wives those whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabeshgilead, and even so they were not enough.
15
And the people repented over Benjamin because the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.
16
Then the elders of the congregation said, What shall we do for wives for those that remain? For the female sex had been destroyed out of Benjamin.
17
And they said, Let the inheritance of Benjamin be saved that a tribe not be destroyed out of Israel.