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Judges 21:21

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

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.’”

23The children of Benjamin did so, and took wives for themselves according to their number, of those who danced, whom they carried off. They went and returned to their inheritance, built the cities, and lived in them.

24The children of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they each went out from there to his own inheritance.

25In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.

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.