UST by section JDG 20:1

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The Book of Judges 20

20 Then many people from throughout Israel traveled to Mizpah so they could meet together there and talk about what to do. They came from as far north as the city of Dan and from as far south as the city of Beersheba. They also came from the region of Gilead east of the Jordan River. They asked Yahweh to be present with them and guide their discussion. 2 The leaders who had come from various tribes of Israel met together with all the other Israelite people. There were 400,000 men there who had learned how to fight well on foot with a sword. 3 The people of the tribe of Benjamin heard that the other Israelites were meeting in Mizpah. But no one from the tribe of Benjamin joined them there.

The other Israelites who had gathered asked to hear how this horrible crime had happened. 4 The Levite whose wife the men of Gibeah had murdered spoke up. He said, “My wife and I were traveling, and we needed a place to stay for the night. We went to the city whose name is Gibeah that is in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin. 5 That evening, a gang of men who seem to be able to do whatever they want in that city surrounded the house where we were staying. They wanted to rape me, and they would have killed me afterwards. I know that because they raped my wife all night so that she died. 6 I took her body home and cut it into pieces. Then I sent one piece into the territory of each of the tribes of Israel. I did that because I wanted you all to know about this terrible, wicked thing that those men did right here in Israel. 7 So now, all you Israelites, talk together here and decide what you should do about this!” 8 Then all the people stood up together to show how resolved they were and said, “None of us will go back to where we live until we make sure that those men will be punished! 9 This is what we must do to the people of Gibeah. First, we will cast lots to choose an army of soldiers to attack them. 10 Then, we will have one tenth of our people get supplies for those soldiers. That way they will have what they need to go to Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin and punish the people who are responsible for doing this terrible thing in the land of Israel.” 11 And all the Israelite people agreed that they had to punish the people of Gibeah. They would all work together to do that. 12 The assembly of Israelites also agreed to send messengers throughout the tribe of Benjamin. They told these messengers to say, “Some of your men have done a very wicked thing in your territory! 13 Those wicked men live in the city of Gibeah. Surrender them to us so that we can execute them. That way we can get rid of the influence that the wicked thing they did is having on the people of Israel.”

But the people of the tribe of Benjamin refused to surrender the men as the other Israelites had demanded. 14 The men who lived in other cities in the territory of Benjamin gathered at Gibeah to defend it against the other Israelites when they attacked. 15 When they did that, a total of 26,000 fighting men came from those cities to fight. Another 700 skilled warriors who lived in Gibeah joined them. 16 Among those soldiers there were 700 skilled warriors who were left-handed. They could all sling stones and hit targets with great accuracy. 17 The people of all the tribes of Israel except Benjamin formed an army of 400,000 men. Those men had learned how to fight with a sword. They were all experienced soldiers. 18 Those other Israelites wanted to ask God for advice. So they went to Bethel where the sacred chest was at that time. They asked, “Which tribe’s soldiers should lead the attack when we go and fight against the tribe of Benjamin?”

Yahweh answered, “The soldiers from the tribe of Judah should lead the attack.” 19 So the next morning the Israelite soldiers went and set up a military camp near Gibeah. 20 After that, the Israelite soldiers went to fight against the men from the tribe of Benjamin. They got into positions near Gibeah where they could fight a battle. 21 The soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and fought against them. They killed 22,000 soldiers from Israel in that battle. 22 But the soldiers of Israel did not give up. They got ready to fight the next day in the same battle lines as on the first day. 23 Some of them had gone to Bethel and mourned in Yahweh’s presence until the end of that day. They had asked Yahweh what they should do. They had said, “Should we fight another battle with the soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin, even though they are Israelites just as we are?” Yahweh had answered, “Yes, attack them!” 24 So the next day the Israelite soldiers once again advanced against the Benjaminite army. 25 The soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin came out from Gibeah to fight another battle. They attacked them, and they killed 18,000 more Israelite soldiers who had all learned how to fight well with a sword. 26 That afternoon, the soldiers who had survived went to Bethel. All the other Israelites who had come to support the army went with them. They sat there in Yahweh’s presence and mourned. They ate nothing that day until the sun set. At the sacred tent the priests made sacrifices for them that they burned completely on the altar, and they also made fellowship sacrifices. 27 The people of Israel asked Yahweh to guide them. The sacred chest of God was in Bethel at that time. 28 Phinehas son of Eleazar, the grandson of Aaron, was serving as the high priest at the sacred tent at that time. The Israelites asked, “Should we fight another battle with the soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin, even though they are Israelites just as we are? Or should we not fight any more battles?” Yahweh said, “Attack them, because tomorrow I will enable you to defeat them.” 29 The Israelites had many of their soldiers hide in the fields around Gibeah. 30 The other Israelite soldiers advanced against Gibeah for a third time. They stood in their positions for fighting a battle against the Benjaminite army just as they had done on the previous days. 31 Then the soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin came out of the city to fight against them. The Israelite soldiers retreated so that they would chase them and go away from the city. The Benjaminite soliders were able to kill some of them as they had done before. They killed them on the roads that they were using to retreat. (One of those roads went to Bethel, and the other road went through the countryside to Gibeah.) They killed about 30 Israelite soldiers. 32 The men of the tribe of Benjamin thought, “We are defeating them as we did before!” But the Israelite soldiers had only retreated in order to trick the soldiers from Benjamin into leaving the city and going down the roads. 33 All at once, the soldiers in the main Israelite army stopped running away and came together into battle positions at a place that people call Baal Tamar. The other Israelite soldiers ran out from where they had been hiding in Maareh Gibeah. 34 There were 10,000 of those soldiers, and the Israelites had selected them for this mission from throughout their army. They advanced against the Benjaminite soldiers from the direction of the city. There was a very big battle. The soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin did not yet realize that the Israelites were going to defeat them badly. 35 Yahweh enabled the Israelite soldiers to defeat the soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin. That day the Israelites killed 25,100 Benjaminites who had all learned how to fight well with a sword. 36 Finally the soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin recognized that they were going to lose the battle. They realized that the Israelite soldiers had only retreated because they knew they had other soldiers hiding around Gibeah who would come and attack them from behind. 37 Those soldiers who had been hiding came out and rushed quickly into Gibeah. They killed everyone who lived in the city. 38 The main group of Israelite soldiers knew when to stop fleeing and turn around and attack because they had arranged for the soldiers who were hiding to give them a signal. They told them to set the city on fire once they had entered it so that a great cloud of smoke would rise from it into the sky. 39 That was why the main group of Israelite soldiers had fled from the battle. They wanted the soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin to think that they were winning the battle, just as they had before. The soldiers from Benjamin were able to kill about 30 Israelite soldiers. 40 But then a cloud of smoke began to rise up from the city because the Israelite soldiers who had been hiding were setting fires as a signal. The soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin turned around and saw a great cloud of smoke going up into the sky because fires were burning throughout the city. 41 The main group of Israelite men also saw the smoke, and so they turned around and began to attack the Benjaminites. The soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin became very afraid, because they realized that they were going to be badly defeated. 42 So the soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin tried to run away toward the desolate area outside the city to escape from the Israelite soldiers. But they were not able to escape, because the rest of the Israelite soldiers were coming at them from the other direction. They were caught between the two groups. 43 The Israelite soldiers surrounded many of the soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin in an area east of Gibeah. This enabled them to kill many of them easily. They told each other to chase the ones who escaped. 44 The Israelites killed 18,000 soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin who were all great warriors. 45 Those who were still alive tried to run to the rock of Rimmon in a desolate area where they could protect themselves. But the Israelite soldiers killed 5,000 more soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin on the roads as they were trying to run away. The Israelites chased other soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin who were fleeing towards the city of Gidom. The Israelites killed 2,000 of them. 46 Altogether 25,000 soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin who had learned how to fight well with a sword died that day. They were all great warriors. 47 But 600 soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin escaped into a desolate area. They got safely to the rock of Rimmon, and they stayed there for four months. 48 Then the Israelite soldiers went throughout the territory that belonged to the tribe of Benjamin and slaughtered everyone. They killed all the people in each city. They also killed all the animals and destroyed everything else that was in those cities. They also burned all of the cities in that territory to the ground.

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