Judges 20 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Then all the people of Israel came out — from Dan in the far north to Beersheba in the south, including the land of Gilead — and the whole community as before at
The of all the and every tribe of Israel took their places in the of the of — four hundred thousand foot soldiers armed with swords.
(The tribe of Benjamin heard that the other Israelites had gone up to Mizpah.) The Israelites asked, "Tell us — how did this terrible thing happen?"
The — the husband of the murdered woman — answered: "I came to Gibeah in Benjamin's territory with my to spend the night.
The men of Gibeah came after me and surrounded the house at night. They intended to kill me. Instead, they my concubine, and she died.
So I took my concubine's body, cut it into pieces, and sent one piece to each region of Israel's territory, because they had committed a and in Israel.
Look — all of you Israelites are here. Talk it over and decide what to do right now."
All the people as and declared, "None of us will go home. Not a single of us will return to his house.
Here's what we'll do to Gibeah — we'll go up against it by
We'll take ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, a hundred out of every thousand, a thousand out of every ten thousand, to get supplies for the army. Then when the troops arrive at Gibeah in Benjamin, they can pay them back for the they committed in Israel."
So all the men of Israel gathered against the city, united as one.
The tribes of Israel sent messengers throughout the whole tribe of Benjamin, saying, "What is this terrible thing that has happened among you?
Now hand over those in Gibeah so we can put them to death and this from Israel." But the Benjaminites refused to listen to their fellow Israelites.
Instead, the Benjaminites gathered from their towns to Gibeah to go out and fight against the rest of Israel.
On that day, the Benjaminites mobilized twenty-six thousand swordsmen from their towns, plus seven hundred specially picked men from the residents of Gibeah.
Among all these troops were seven hundred elite fighters, each of whom could a at a and not
And the men of Israel, apart from Benjamin, mobilized four hundred thousand swordsmen — every one a battle-ready warrior.
The Israelites went up to and asked God, "Which of us should go up first to fight the Benjaminites?" answered, "Judah goes first."
The next morning, the Israelites broke camp and took positions against Gibeah.
The men of Israel marched out to fight Benjamin and formed their battle lines against them at Gibeah.
The Benjaminites charged out of Gibeah and cut down twenty-two thousand Israelites on the field that day.
But the Israelite army rallied their courage and formed their battle lines again in the same place where they had positioned themselves the first day.
The Israelites went up and until evening. They asked "Should we go out again to fight our Benjamin?" said, "Go up against him."
So the Israelites advanced against the Benjaminites on the second day.
Benjamin charged out of Gibeah against them on the second day and cut down another eighteen thousand Israelites — all of them swordsmen.
Then all the Israelites — the entire army — went up to Bethel, sat down, and wept before Yahweh. They fasted that whole day until evening and offered and before Yahweh.
The Israelites inquired of Yahweh — the of was there in those days,
and son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, was serving before it — and they asked, "Should we go out once more to fight our brother Benjamin, or should we stop?" Yahweh answered, "Go up, because tomorrow I will them to you."
So Israel set ambush forces all around Gibeah.
The Israelites went up against the Benjaminites on the third day and took positions against Gibeah just as they had done before.
The Benjaminites charged out to meet the army and were drawn away from the city. They began to inflict casualties as before — about thirty Israelites fell on the roads, one going up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah through the open country.
The Benjaminites were thinking, "We're beating them just like before!" But the Israelites had planned, "Let's retreat and draw them away from the city onto the roads."
The main Israelite force pulled back to and reformed there, while the ambush force charged out from their position west of Gibeah.
Ten thousand of Israel's best fighters made a frontal assault on Gibeah. The fighting was fierce, and the Benjaminites had no idea that disaster was closing in on them.
down before Israel. That day the Israelites destroyed twenty-five thousand one hundred Benjaminite swordsmen.
The Benjaminites realized they were beaten. The Israelite main force had given ground to Benjamin because they were counting on the ambush they had set near Gibeah.
The ambush force rushed in and struck the entire city with the edge of the sword.
The prearranged signal between the main Israelite force and the ambush was this: when the ambush sent up a large column of smoke from the city,
the main Israelite force would reverse and attack. By the time Benjamin had killed about thirty Israelites and were saying, "We're clearly beating them just like the first battle!" —
the signal — a column of smoke — started rising from the city. The Benjaminites turned around, and there it was: the whole city going up in flames toward the sky.
Then the main Israelite force turned around, and the Benjaminites were terrified — they could see that disaster had caught up with them.
They retreated before the Israelites toward the wilderness road, but the battle overtook them, and the men coming out of the towns were cutting them down in between.
They surrounded the Benjaminites, chased them down, and them at their resting place as far as the area east of Gibeah.
Eighteen thousand Benjaminites fell — all of them strong warriors.
The survivors turned and fled toward the wilderness, to the of but the Israelites picked off five thousand more on the roads and kept chasing them hard all the way to Gidom, killing two thousand more.
In total, twenty-five thousand Benjaminite swordsmen fell that day — all of them strong warriors.
But six hundred men turned and escaped to the wilderness, to the rock of Rimmon, and they stayed at the rock of Rimmon for four months.
The Israelites turned back against the rest of Benjamin and every to the — the people, the livestock, everything they found. They also to every they came across.