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Judges 21:18

Verse 18 of 25. The 21st of 21 chapters in Judges, in History.

14Benjamin returned at that time; and they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh Gilead. There still weren’t enough for them.

15The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

16Then the elders of the congregation said, “How shall we provide wives for those who remain, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?”

17They said, “There must be an inheritance for those who are escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel.

18However, we may not give them wives of our daughters, for the children of Israel had sworn, saying, ‘Cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin.’”

19They said, “Behold, there is a feast of the LORD from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.”

20They commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards,

21and see, and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards, and each man catch his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

22It shall be, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we will say to them, ‘Grant them graciously to us, because we didn’t take for each man his wife in battle, neither did you give them to them; otherwise you would now be guilty.’”

Read Judges 21

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