40. But when the signal, the column of smoke, began to rise up from the city, Benjamin looked back and there was the whole city going up in smoke toward heaven.
41. Then when the men of Israel wheeled about, the men of Benjamin were thrown into confusion, for they realized that disaster was closing in on them.
42. They retreated before the men of Israel in the direction of the wilderness, but the fighting kept pace with them, and those who had been in the city were spreading destruction in between.
43. They surrounded the men of Benjamin, pursued them from Nohah and drove them along to a point east of Gibeah.
44. Eighteen thousand from Benjamin fell, all of them warriors.
45. They turned and fled into the wilderness to the crag of Rimmon. The Israelites picked off five thousand men on the highways and kept pace with them as far as Gidom, where they struck down another two thousand of them.
46. The total of those from Benjamin who fell that day was twenty-five thousand swordsmen, all of them warriors.
47. Six hundred men turned and fled into the wilderness to the crag of Rimmon, where they remained for four months.
48. Then the men of Israel turned back against the Benjaminites, putting them to the sword—the inhabitants of the cities, the livestock, and all they came upon. Moreover they destroyed by fire all the cities they came upon.