The Lord said to the Israelites, “Did I not deliver you from Egypt, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines,

But the Israelites said to the Lord, “We have sinned. You do to us as you see fit, but deliver us today!”

When the Ammonites attacked, the leaders of Gilead asked Jephthah to come back from the land of Tob.

and said to him, “This is what Jephthah says, ‘Israel did not steal the land of Moab and the land of the Ammonites.

Are you really better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he dare to quarrel with Israel? Did he dare to fight with them?

He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys. He led Israel for eight years.

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.

Now his father and mother did not realize this was the Lord’s doing, because he was looking for an opportunity to stir up trouble with the Philistines (for at that time the Philistines were ruling Israel).

They named it Dan after their ancestor, who was one of Israel’s sons. But the city’s name used to be Laish.

But his master said to him, “We should not stop at a foreign city where non-Israelites live. We will travel on to Gibeah.”

When he got home, he took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces. Then he sent the pieces throughout Israel.

All the Israelites from Dan to Beer Sheba and from the land of Gilead left their homes and assembled together before the Lord at Mizpah.

The leaders of all the people from all the tribes of Israel took their places in the assembly of God’s people, which numbered four hundred thousand sword-wielding foot soldiers.

The tribes of Israel sent men throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “How could such a wicked thing take place?

The men of Israel (not counting Benjamin) had mustered four hundred thousand sword-wielding soldiers, every one an experienced warrior.

The Benjaminites attacked from Gibeah and struck down twenty-two thousand Israelites that day.

The Israelite army took heart and once more arranged their battle lines, in the same place where they had taken their positions the day before.

The Israelites attacked the Benjaminites the next day; they took their positions against Gibeah just as they had done before.

Then the Benjaminites said, “They are defeated just as before.” But the Israelites said, “Let’s retreat and lure them away from the city into the main roads.”

Ten thousand men, well-trained soldiers from all Israel, then made a frontal assault against Gibeah – the battle was fierce. But the Benjaminites did not realize that disaster was at their doorstep.