8. Then they inquired, “Which one of the tribes of Israel that did not go up to Adonai at Mizpah?” Then behold, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh-gilead to the assembly.
9. For when the people were numbered, behold not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was there.
10. So the congregation sent 12,000 valiant warriors there, and commanded them saying, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones.
11. Now this is the thing that you will do: you are to utterly destroy every male and every woman who has lain with a man.”
12. So they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known man by lying with him. They brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.
13. Then the whole congregation sent and spoke to the children of Benjamin who were in the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed shalom to them.
14. When Benjamin returned at that time, they gave them the women whom they had spared from the women of Jabesh-gilead. Yet they were not enough for them.
15. So the people were sorry for Benjamin because Adonai had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.
16. Then the elders of the congregation said, “What should we do about wives for those who are left, since the women have been destroyed out of Benjamin?”
17. They said “The survivors of Benjamin must have heirs, so that a tribe would not be blotted out from Israel.