40. But when the column of smoke began to rise from the city, the Benjaminites turned and saw the whole city going up in smoke.
41. Then the Israelites counterattacked, and the Benjaminites were terrified, because they realised that disaster had come on them.
42. So they fled before the Israelites in the direction of the wilderness, but they could not escape the battle. And the Israelites who came out of the towns cut them down there.
43. They surrounded the Benjaminites, chased them and easily overran them in the vicinity of Gibeah on the east.
44. Eighteen thousand Benjaminites fell, all of them valiant fighters.
45. As they turned and fled towards the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, the Israelites cut down five thousand men along the roads. They kept pressing after the Benjaminites as far as Gidom and struck down two thousand more.
46. On that day twenty-five thousand Benjaminite swordsmen fell, all of them valiant fighters.
47. But six hundred of them turned and fled into the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, where they stayed for four months.
48. The men of Israel went back to Benjamin and put all the towns to the sword, including the animals and everything else they found. All the towns they came across they set on fire.