Judges 21:16-23

Lexham English Bible

¹⁶ So the elders of the congregation said, “What should we do for the remaining ones for wives, since the women from Benjamin have been destroyed?” ¹⁷ And they said, “There must be a remnant for Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be blotted out from Israel. ¹⁸ But we cannot give them wives from our daughters.” (For the Israelites^[a] swore, saying, “Cursed be anyone who gives a wife to Benjamin.”) ¹⁹ And they said, “Look, the annual feast of Yahweh is in Shiloh, which is to the north of Bethel, east^[b] of the main road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah. ²⁰ They instructed the descendants^[c] of Benjamin, saying, “Go, lie in ambush in the vineyards, ²¹ and watch and look; when the daughters of Shiloh dance in the dances, come out from the vineyards and seize for yourselves a wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. ²² And if their fathers or their brothers complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Allow us to have them, because we did not capture a wife for each man in the battle, and because you did not give them to them, or else^[d] you would have been guilty.’” ²³ The descendants^[e] of Benjamin did likewise, and they took wives for each of them from the dancers whom they seized, and they went and returned to their territory, and they rebuilt the cities and they lived in them.