17. And they said, “There must be a remnant for Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be blotted out from Israel.
18. But we cannot give them wives from our daughters.” (For the Israelites swore, saying, “Cursed be anyone who gives a wife to Benjamin.”)
19. And they said, “Look, the annual feast of Yahweh is in Shiloh, which is to the north of Bethel, east of the main road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.
20. They instructed the descendants of Benjamin, saying, “Go, lie in ambush in the vineyards,
21. and watch and look; when the daughters of Shiloh dance in the dances, come out from the vineyards and seize for yourselves a wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
22. And if their fathers or their brothers complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Allow us to have them, because we did not capture a wife for each man in the battle, and because you did not give them to them, or else you would have been guilty.’ ”
23. The descendants of Benjamin did likewise, and they took wives for each of them from the dancers whom they seized, and they went and returned to their territory, and they rebuilt the cities and they lived in them.
24. So the Israelites dispersed from there at that time according to tribe and family; and they went out from there, each one to their own territory.
25. In those days there was no king in Israel; each one did what was right in his own eyes.