6. The Israelites had a change of heart concerning their relatives the Benjaminites. They said, "Today one tribe has been cut off from Israel.
7. What can we do to provide wives for the ones who are left, since we ourselves have made a pledge before the Lord not to allow our daughters to marry them?"
8. So they asked, "Is there anyone from the tribes of Israel who didn’t march up before the Lord at Mizpah?" There was! No one from Jabesh-gilead had come to the assembly at the camp.
9. When the people’s attendance was taken, not one of those who lived in Jabesh-gilead had been there.
10. The community dispatched twelve thousand warriors there with these orders: "Go kill all the people in Jabesh-gilead, including women and children.
11. Here’s what you should do: Exterminate every man and every woman who has slept with a man."
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!’