CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub]. Common English Bible

CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub]

Laish. ³⁰The Danites set up the sculpted image for themselves, and Jonathan son of Gershom and grandson of Moses,^c and his sons became priests for the Danite tribe until the land went into exile. ³¹They kept for themselves the sculpted image that Micah had made throughout the whole time that God's sanctuary was in Shiloh.

A Levite, a woman, and her father

Judges 19In those days when there was no king in Israel, there was a certain Levite living as an immigrant in the far corners of the Ephraim highlands. He married a secondary wife from Bethlehem in Judah. ²In an act of unfaithfulness toward him, his secondary wife left him and went back to her father's household at Bethlehem in Judah. She stayed there four full months. ³Then her husband set out after her to convince her to come back. He had his servant and a couple of donkeys with him. She took him into her father's house, and when the young woman's father saw him, he was happy to welcome him. ⁴Since his father-in-law, the young woman's father, insisted, he stayed with him three days, eating, drinking, and spending the night there.

⁵On the fourth day, they got up early in the morning, and he got ready to set out. But the young woman's father said to his son-in-law, "Eat a little food to give you strength, and then you can go."⁶So the two of them sat down and ate and drank together. The young woman's father said to the man, "Why not spend the night and enjoy yourself?"⁷When the man got ready to set out, his father-in-law persuaded him, and he spent the night there again. ⁸On the fifth day, he got up early in the morning to set out, and the young woman's father said, "Have some food for strength." So the two of them ate, sitting around until late in the day. ⁹When the man got ready to set out with his secondary wife and servant, his father-in-law, the young woman's father, said, "Look, the day has turned to evening, so spend the night. Seriously, the day is over. Spend the night here and enjoy yourself. Then you can get up early tomorrow for your journey, and you can head home."

¹⁰But the man was unwilling to spend another night. He got up, set out, and went as far as the area of Jebus, that is, Jerusalem. He had a couple of saddled donkeys and his secondary wife with him. ¹¹When they were near Jebus, the day was totally gone. The servant said to his master, "Come on, let's turn into this Jebusite city and spend the night in it."

¹²But his master replied to him, "We won't turn into a city of foreigners who aren't Israelites. We'll travel on to Gibeah. ¹³"Come on," he said to his servant, "let's reach Gibeah or Ramah and spend the night in one of those places."¹⁴So they traveled on, and the sun set when they were near Gibeah in Benjamin. ¹⁵They turned in to enter there, so they could spend the night in Gibeah, and he went and sat down in the city square. But no one offered to take them home to spend the night.

Rape and murder at Gibeah

¹⁶Then in the evening, an old man was coming home from his daily work in the fields. This man was from the Ephraim highlands and was an immigrant in Gibeah, the people of that place being Benjaminites. ¹⁷He looked up and saw the traveler in the city square. "Where are you heading and where have you come from?" the old man asked.

¹⁸"We're traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the far corners of the Ephraim highlands," he replied to the old man. "That's where I'm from. I went to Bethlehem in Judah, and I'm heading to my home.^d But no one has offered to take me in tonight. ¹⁹We've got our own straw and feed for our donkeys, plus food and wine to provide for me, the woman, and my servant with us. We don't need anything."

²⁰The old man answered, "You're welcome to stay with me,^e but let me take care of all your needs. Just don't spend the night in the square."²¹And he took him into his house. He mixed feed for the donkeys, and they washed their feet, ate, and drank.

²²While they were relaxing, suddenly the men of the city, a perverse bunch, surrounded the house and started pounding on the door. They said to the old man, the owner of the house, "Send out the man who came to your house, so we can have sex with him!"

²³The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, please don't commit such an evil act, given that this man has come to my home as a guest. Don't do this disgraceful thing!²⁴Here's my daughter, the young woman, and his secondary wife. Let me send them out, and you can abuse them and do whatever you want to them. But don't do such a disgraceful thing to this man!"²⁵But the men refused to listen to him.

So the Levite grabbed his secondary wife and sent her outside to them. They raped her and abused her all night long until morning. They finally let her go as dawn was breaking.

²⁶At daybreak, the woman came and collapsed at the door of the man's house where her husband was staying, where she lay until it was daylight. ²⁷When her husband got up in the morning, he opened the doors of the house and went outside to set out on his journey. And there was his secondary wife, lying at the entrance of the house, with her hands clutching the doorframe. ²⁸"Get up," he said to her, "let's go." But there was no response. So he laid her across a donkey, and the man set out for home. ²⁹When he got home, he picked up a knife, took his secondary wife, and chopped her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces. Then he sent them into all the areas of Israel. ³⁰Everyone who saw it said, "Has such a thing ever happened or been seen since the time when the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until today? Think about it, decide what to do, and speak out!"

Civil war between the Benjaminites and the Israelites

Judges 20Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beer-sheba, as well as from the area of Gilead, marched out, and the group assembled as one body in the LORD's presence at Mizpah. ²The commanders of the people and of all the tribes of Israel took their place in the assembly of God's people, four hundred thousand foot soldiers armed with swords. ³And the Benjaminites got word that the Israelites had marched up to Mizpah.

The Israelites inquired, "Tell us how this evil act happened."

⁴So the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, answered, "My secondary wife and I came to Gibeah of Benjamin to spend the night,⁵and the leading citizens of Gibeah tried to attack me. They surrounded me in the house at night and were determined to kill me. They abused my secondary wife until she died. ⁶I took her, chopped her up, and sent her pieces into every part of Israel's territory, because they had committed a disgraceful act in Israel. ⁷All you Israelites, say what you think should be done here and now!"

⁸At this, all the people stood as one to say, "Not a single one of us is going home or returning to our house!⁹This is what we're now going to do to Gibeah: We'll march up^f against it as the lot determines. ¹⁰From all the tribes of Israel, we'll get ten men for every hundred, one hundred for every thousand, and one thousand for every ten thousand to take supplies for the troops who are going to pay back^g Gibeah of Benjamin for the disgraceful act they've done in Israel."¹¹So all the Israelites joined together and were united as one against the city.

¹²The Israelite tribes sent men throughout the whole tribe of Benjamin with this message: "What about this evil act that happened among you?¹³Now hand over those perverse men in Gibeah so that we can execute them and remove the evil from Israel." But the Benjaminites refused to comply with the demand of their own relatives the Israelites. ¹⁴Instead, the Benjaminites from all the cities came together at Gibeah to march out for battle against the Israelites. ¹⁵On that day, the Benjaminites called up from their cities twenty-six thousand men armed with swords, not counting those living in Gibeah.^h ¹⁶Out of this entire army, seven hundred specially chosen men were left-handed, and every one of them could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. ¹⁷Not counting Benjamin, the Israelites called up four hundred thousand men armed with swords, and every one of them was a trained warrior.

¹⁸Then the Israelites marched up to Bethel to ask for direction from God. They inquired, "Who should go up first to fight

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