1. All the children of Israel from Dan to Beersheba, and also from the land of Gilead, went out and gathered together in an assembly as one man before the Lord at Mizpah.
2. The leaders of all the people from all the tribes of Israel presented themselves in an assembly of the people of God, who numbered four hundred thousand infantrymen bearing swords.
3. (The Benjamites heard that the children of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.) The children of Israel said, “Tell how this evil happened!”
4. So the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, answered, “My concubine and I came to Gibeah, in Benjamin, to spend the night.
5. Then the leaders of Gibeah rose up against me. At night they surrounded the house where I was staying. They wanted to kill me; instead they ravished my concubine so that she died.
6. I seized my concubine, cut her into pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel, because they committed an infamous and disgraceful act in Israel.
7. Now, all of you are children of Israel. Give your advice and counsel here.”
8. All the people arose as one man and said, “Not a man among us will go to his tent, and no one will turn aside to his house.
9. Now this is what we will do to Gibeah. We will go against it by lot.
10. We will take ten men out of every hundred, from every tribe of Israel, a hundred from every thousand, and a thousand from every ten thousand, to bring provisions for the troops. Then when they come to Gibeah in Benjamin, they may repay them for all the evil that they committed in Israel.”
11. So all the men of Israel gathered at the city, united like one man.
12. The tribes of Israel sent men throughout the whole tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What is this evil that has been committed among you?