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Judges 20:39

Verse 39 of 48. The 20th of 21 chapters in Judges, in History.

35The LORD struck Benjamin before Israel; and the children of Israel destroyed of Benjamin that day twenty-five thousand one hundred men. All these drew the sword.

36So the children of Benjamin saw that they were struck, for the men of Israel yielded to Benjamin because they trusted the ambushers whom they had set against Gibeah.

37The ambushers hurried, and rushed on Gibeah; then the ambushers spread out, and struck all the city with the edge of the sword.

38Now the appointed sign between the men of Israel and the ambushers was that they should make a great cloud of smoke rise up out of the city.

39The men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; for they said, “Surely they are struck down before us, as in the first battle.”

40But when the cloud began to arise up out of the city in a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them; and behold, the whole city went up in smoke to the sky.

41The men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were dismayed; for they saw that disaster had come on them.

42Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel to the way of the wilderness, but the battle followed hard after them; and those who came out of the cities destroyed them in the middle of it.

43They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them, and trod them down at their resting place, as far as near Gibeah toward the sunrise.

Read Judges 20

World English Bible. Public domain. Set as prose throughout, including the poetry, because the text is published to us without its lines.