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We have straw and food for our donkeys, also bread and wine for me, my concubine and the boy there with your servants; we don't need anything else."

They were relaxing, when suddenly some men from the city, good-for-nothings, surrounded the house and began beating at the door. "Send out the man who came home with you!" they demanded of the old man whose house it was. "We want to have sex with him!"

we'll take ten men out of each hundred throughout all the tribes of Isra'el, and a hundred out of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand to collect food for the others. When these come to Giv‘ah in Binyamin, they will avenge the crime that was committed."

Turn over these good-for-nothings who are in Giv‘ah at once, so that we can execute them and rid Isra'el of such evil." But the people of Binyamin refused to obey the order of their kinsmen the people of Isra'el.

The people, the men of Isra'el, restored their morale and again positioned themselves for battle where they had been the first day.

and asked Adonai what to do. The ark for the covenant of God was there at that time;

For Adonai routed Binyamin in Isra'el's presence; that day the army of Isra'el destroyed 25,100 men of Binyamin, all of whom carried swords;

they turned their backs on the men of Isra'el and made for the road to the desert. But the battle followed them, and those who came out of the city destroyed them from the rear.

The people of Isra'el asked, "Who among the tribes of Isra'el did not come up to assemble before Adonai ? For they had made a great oath to put to death whoever didn't come up to Adonai at Mitzpah.

The people of Isra'el became sorry for Binyamin their brother and said, "Today one tribe has been cut off from Isra'el.

How are we going to obtain wives for those who remain alive, since we've sworn by Adonai that we won't let our daughters marry them?"

So Binyamin returned at that time, and the people of Isra'el gave them the women they had kept alive of the women from Yavesh-Gil‘ad. But those weren't enough for them.

The people were still sorry for Binyamin because Adonai had made a division among the tribes of Isra'el.

The leaders of the assembly asked, "What are we to do for those who still don't have wives, inasmuch as all the women of Binyamin have been killed?"

Yet we can't give them our daughters as wives." For the people of Isra'el had sworn, "Cursed be whoever gives a wife to Binyamin."

and keep watch. If the girls of Shiloh come out to do their dances, then come out of the vineyards, and each of you catch for himself a wife from the Shiloh girls, and go on to the land of Binyamin.

When their fathers or brothers come to complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Give them as a personal favor to us, because we didn't take wives for each of them in battle. You didn't give them to them; that would have made you guilty of breaking your oath.'"

So the men of Binyamin did this — they took wives for themselves from the girls who were dancing, as many as they needed. They carried them off, went back to the land of their inheritance, rebuilt the cities and lived in them.

They took wives for themselves from the women of Mo'av; the name of the one was ‘Orpah; and the name of the other was Rut. They lived there for about ten years.

So she prepared to return with her daughters-in-law from the plain of Mo'av; for in the plain of Mo'av she had heard how Adonai had paid attention to his people by giving them food.