9
For the people were numbered, and behold, [there were] none of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead there.
10
And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the most valiant, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 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 hath lain by man.
12
And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins that had known no man by lying with any male: and they brought them to the camp to Shiloh, which [is] in the land of Canaan.
13
And the whole congregation sent [some] to speak to the children of Benjamin that [were] in the rock Rimmon, and to call peaceably to them.
14
And Benjamin came again at that time; and they gave them wives which they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh-gilead: and yet so they sufficed them not.
15
And the people repented for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.
16
Then the elders of the congregation said, How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?
17
And they said, [There must be] an inheritance for them that have escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel.
18
But, we may not give them wives of our daughters: for the children of Israel have sworn, saying, Cursed [be] he that giveth a wife to Benjamin.
19
Then they said, Behold, [there is] a feast of the LORD in Shiloh yearly [in a place] which [is] on the north side of Beth-el, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Beth-el to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.