<t /><p class="bodytext">When Joshua dismissed<n id="1" /> the people, the Israelites went to their allotted portions of territory,<n id="2" /> intending to take possession of the land.

When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead, they went home.<n id="1" />p>

<p class="bodytext">They turned and went on their way, but they walked behind the children, the cattle, and their possessions.<n id="1" />

So they traveled on,<n id="1" /> and the sun went down when they were near Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin.<n id="2" />

They paid him seventy silver shekels out of the temple of Baal-Berith. Abimelech then used the silver to hire some lawless, dangerous<n id="1" /> men as his followers.<n id="2" />

All the leaders of Shechem and Beth Millo assembled and then went and made Abimelech king by the oak near the pillar<n id="1" /> in Shechem.p>

When the Ammonites attacked,<n id="1" /> the leaders<n id="2" /> of Gilead asked Jephthah to come back<n id="3" /> from the land of Tob.

The Danites went on their way; when Micah realized<n id="1" /> they were too strong to resist,<n id="2" /> he turned around and went home.p>

They abandoned the <sc>Lordsc> God of their ancestors<n id="1" /> who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods &#8211; the gods of the nations who lived around them. They worshiped<n id="2" /> them and made the <sc>Lordsc> angry.

So each of his men also cut off a branch and followed Abimelech. They put the branches<n id="1" /> against the stronghold and set fire to it.<n id="2" /> All the people<n id="3" /> of the Tower of Shechem died &#8211; about a thousand men and women.p>

<p class="bodytext">So the five men journeyed on<n id="1" /> and arrived in Laish. They noticed that the people there<n id="2" /> were living securely, like the Sidonians do,<n id="3" /> undisturbed and unsuspecting. No conqueror was troubling them in any way.<n id="4" /> They lived far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone.<n id="5" />

<p class="bodytext">The Benjaminites did as instructed.<n id="1" /> They abducted two hundred of the dancing girls to be their wives.<n id="2" /> They went home<n id="3" /> to their own territory,<n id="4" /> rebuilt their cities, and settled down.<n id="5" />