Judges 19–21

A Levite and His Servant

19At that time Israel did not have a king.

There was a Levite who lived in the faraway mountains of Ephraim. He had taken a slave woman from the city of Bethlehem in the land of Judah to live with him, ²but she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah and stayed there for four months. ³Then her husband went to ask her to come back to him, taking with him his servant and two donkeys. When the Levite came to her father’s house, she invited him to come in, and her father was happy to see him. ⁴The father-in-law, the young woman’s father, asked him to stay. So he stayed for three days and ate, drank, and slept there.

⁵On the fourth day they got up early in the morning. The Levite was getting ready to leave, but the woman’s father said to his son-in-law, “Refresh yourself by eating something. Then go.” ⁶So the two men sat down to eat and drink together. After that, the father said to him, “Please stay tonight. Relax and enjoy yourself.” ⁷When the man got up to go, his father-in-law asked him to stay. So he stayed again that night. ⁸On the fifth day the man got up early in the morning to leave. The woman’s father said, “Refresh yourself. Wait until this afternoon.” So the two men ate together.

⁹When the Levite, his slave woman, and his servant got up to leave, the father-in-law, the young woman’s father, said, “It’s almost night. The day is almost gone. Spend the night here and enjoy yourself. Tomorrow morning you can get up early and go home.” ¹⁰But the Levite did not want to stay another night. So he took his two saddled donkeys and his slave woman and traveled toward the city of Jebus (also called Jerusalem).

¹¹As the day was almost over, they came near Jebus. So the servant said to his master, “Let’s stop at this city of the Jebusites, and spend the night here.”

¹²But his master said, “No. We won’t go inside a foreign city. Those people are not Israelites. We will go on to the city of Gibeah.” ¹³He said, “Come on. Let’s try to make it to Gibeah or Ramah so we can spend the night in one of those cities.” ¹⁴So they went on. The sun went down as they came near Gibeah, which belongs to the tribe of Benjamin. ¹⁵They stopped there to spend the night. They came to the public square of the city and sat down, but no one invited them home to spend the night.

¹⁶Finally, in the evening an old man came in from his work in the fields. His home was in the mountains of Ephraim, but now he was living in Gibeah. (The people of Gibeah were from the tribe of Benjamin.) ¹⁷He saw the traveler in the public square and asked, “Where are you going? Where did you come from?”

¹⁸The Levite answered, “We are traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to my home in the mountains of Ephraim. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah, but now I am going to the Holy Tent of the Lord. No one has invited me to stay in his house. ¹⁹We already have straw and food for our donkeys and bread and wine for me, the young woman, and my servant. We don’t need anything.”

²⁰The old man said, “You are welcome to stay at my house. Let me give you anything you need, but don’t spend the night in the public square.” ²¹So the old man took the Levite into his house, and he fed their donkeys. They washed their feet and had something to eat and drink.

²²While they were enjoying themselves, some wicked men of the city surrounded the house and beat on the door. They shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house. We want to have sexual relations with him.”

²³The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends. Don’t be so evil. This man is a guest in my house. Don’t do this terrible thing! ²⁴Look, here are my daughter, who has never had sexual relations before, and the man’s slave woman. I will bring them out to you now. Do anything you want with them, but don’t do such a terrible thing to this man.”

²⁵But the men would not listen to him. So the Levite took his slave woman and sent her outside to them. They forced her to have sexual relations with them, and they abused her all night long. Then, at dawn, they let her go. ²⁶She came back to the house where her master was staying and fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.

²⁷In the morning when the Levite got up, he opened the door of the house and went outside to go on his way. But his slave woman was lying at the doorway of the house, with her hands on the doorsill. ²⁸The Levite said to her, “Get up; let’s go.” But she did not answer. So he put her on his donkey and went home.

²⁹When the Levite got home, he took a knife and cut his slave woman into twelve parts, limb by limb. Then he sent a part to each area of Israel. ³⁰Everyone who saw this said, “Nothing like this has ever happened before, not since the people of Israel came out of Egypt. Think about it. Tell us what to do.”

The War Between Israel and Benjamin

20So all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba, ⁿ including the land of Gilead, joined together before the Lord in the city of Mizpah. ²The leaders of all the tribes of Israel took their places in the meeting of the people of God. There were 400,000 soldiers with swords. ³(The people of Benjamin heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah.) Then the Israelites said to the Levite, “Tell us how this evil thing happened.”

⁴So the husband of the murdered woman answered, “My slave woman and I came to Gibeah in Benjamin to spend the night. ⁵During the night the men of Gibeah came after me. They surrounded the house and wanted to kill me. They forced my slave woman to have sexual relations and she died. ⁶I took her and cut her into parts and sent one part to each area of Israel because the people of Benjamin did this wicked and terrible thing in Israel. ⁷Now, all you Israelites, speak up. What is your decision?”

⁸Then all the people stood up at the same time, saying, “None of us will go home. Not one of us will go back to his house! ⁹Now this is what we will do to Gibeah. We will throw lots. ¹⁰That way we will choose ten men from every hundred men from all the tribes of Israel, and we will choose a hundred men from every thousand, and a thousand men from every ten thousand. These will find supplies for the army. Then the army will go to the city of Gibeah of Benjamin to repay them for the terrible thing they have done in Israel.” ¹¹So all the men of Israel were united and gathered against the city.

¹²The tribes of Israel sent men throughout the tribe of Benjamin demanding, “What is this evil thing some of your men have done? ¹³Hand over the wicked men in Gibeah so that we can put them to death. We must remove this evil from Israel.”

But the Benjaminites would not listen to their fellow Israelites. ¹⁴The Benjaminites left their own cities and met at Gibeah to fight the Israelites. ¹⁵In only one day the Benjaminites got 26,000 soldiers together who were trained with swords. They also had 700 chosen men from Gibeah. ¹⁶Seven hundred of these trained soldiers were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss!

¹⁷The Israelites, except for the Benjaminites, gathered 400,000 soldiers with swords.

¹⁸The Israelites went up to the city of Bethel and asked God, “Which tribe shall be first to attack the Benjaminites?”

The Lord answered, “Judah shall go first.”

¹⁹The next morning the Israelites got up and made a camp near Gibeah. ²⁰The men of Israel went out to fight the Benjaminites and took their battle position at Gibeah. ²¹Then the Benjaminites came out of Gibeah and killed 22,000 Israelites during the battle that day. ^22–23The Israelites went before the Lord and cried until evening. They asked the Lord, “Shall we go to fight our relatives, the Benjaminites, again?”

The Lord answered, “Go up and fight them.” The men of Israel encouraged each other. So they took the same battle positions they had taken the first day.

²⁴The Israelites came to fight the Benjaminites the second day. ²⁵The Benjaminites came out of Gibeah to attack the Israelites. This time, the Benjaminites killed 18,000 Israelites, all of whom carried swords.

²⁶Then the Israelites went up to Bethel. There they sat down and cried to the Lord and fasted all day until evening. They also brought burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the Lord. ²⁷The Israelites asked the Lord a question. (In those days the Ark of the Agreement with God was there at Bethel. ²⁸A priest named Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, served before the Ark of the Agreement.) They asked, “Shall we go to fight our relatives, the Benjaminites, again, or shall we stop fighting?”

The Lord answered, “Go, because tomorrow I will hand them over to you.”

²⁹Then the Israelites set up ambushes all around Gibeah. ³⁰They went to fight against the Benjaminites at Gibeah on the third day, getting into position for battle as they had done before. ³¹When the Benjaminites came out to fight them, the Israelites backed up and led the Benjaminites away from the city. The Benjaminites began to kill some of the Israelites as they had done before. About thirty Israelites were killed—some in the fields and some on the roads leading to Bethel and to Gibeah.

³²The Benjaminites said, “We are winning as before!”

But the Israelites said, “Let’s run. Let’s trick them into going farther away from their city and onto the roads.”

³³All the Israelites moved from their places and got into battle positions at a place named Baal Tamar. Then the Israelites ran out from their hiding places west of Gibeah. ³⁴Ten thousand of the best trained soldiers from all of Israel attacked Gibeah. The battle was very hard. The Benjaminites did not know disaster was about to come to them. ³⁵The Lord used the Israelites to defeat the Benjaminites. On that day the Israelites killed 25,100 Benjaminites, all armed with swords. ³⁶Then the Benjaminites saw that they were defeated.

The Israelites had moved back because they were depending on the surprise…