12. Among the people of Jabesh-gilead, they found four hundred young women who had not known a man intimately or slept with one, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.
13. The whole community then sent word to the Benjaminites who were at the rock of Rimmon and offered them a truce.
14. So the Benjaminites returned at that time, and they gave them the women from Jabesh-gilead that they had allowed to live. Even so, there weren’t enough for them.
15. Since the people had a change of heart concerning the Benjaminites because the Lord had caused a rupture in the tribes of Israel,
16. the community elders said, "What can we do to provide wives for the ones who are left, seeing that the Benjaminite women have been destroyed?
17. There must be a surviving line for those who remain from Benjamin," they continued, "so that a tribe won’t be erased from Israel.
18. But we can’t allow our daughters to marry them, for we Israelites have made this pledge: ‘Let anyone who provides a wife for Benjamin be cursed!’
19. However," they said, "the annual festival of the Lord is under way in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, east of the main road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah."