Judges 19

¹ In those days, when there was no king in Israel, there was a man, a Levite, whose home was deep in the highlands of Ephraim. He took as concubine a woman from Bethlehem in Judah.

² In a fit of anger his concubine left him and returned to her father’s house at Bethlehem in Judah, and she stayed there for some four months.

³ Her husband set out to visit her, to reason with her and fetch her back; he had his servant and two donkeys with him. As he approached the house of the girl’s father, the father saw him and came very joyfully to meet him.

⁴ His father-in-law, the father of the girl, made him his guest; and he stayed with him for three days; they ate and drank and spent the night there.

⁵ On the fourth day they got up early, and the Levite was preparing to leave when the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, ‘Have a bite of food to fortify yourself; you can leave later’.

⁶ So they sat down and began eating and drinking, the two of them together; then the girl’s father said to the young man, ‘Come, say you will spend tonight here too, and enjoy yourself’.

⁷ And when the man got up to leave, the father-in-law pressed him again, and he spent another night there.

⁸ On the fifth morning, the Levite got up early to leave, but the girl’s father said to him, ‘Eat something first, I beg you’. So they whiled away the time till the day began to decline, and the two of them ate together.

⁹ The husband was preparing to leave with his concubine and his servant when his father-in-law, the father of the girl, said to him, ‘Look, the day is drawing towards evening. Spend the night here and enjoy yourself. Early tomorrow you can go and return to your tent.’

¹⁰ But the man would not stay the night there; he got up and set off and came within sight of Jebus-that is, Jerusalem. He had with him two donkeys saddled, and his concubine and his servant.

¹¹ By the time they were near Jerusalem, the day was fast going. The servant said to his master, ‘Please let us leave the road now and enter this Jebusite town and spend the night there’.

¹² His master answered, ‘We will not enter a town of foreigners, of people who are not Israelites; we will go on to Gibeah instead’.

¹³ He went on to say to the servant, ‘Come on, we will try to reach one or other of those places, either Gibeah or Ramah, and spend the night there’.

¹⁴ So they kept on, continuing their journey. As they approached Gibeah in Benjamin the sun was already setting.

¹⁵ So they turned that way to spend the night in Gibeah. Inside the town, the Levite sat down in the middle of the public square, but no one offered to take them into his house for the night.

¹⁶ But an old man came their way, who was returning at nightfall from his work in the fields. He was a man from the highlands of Ephraim, and a foreigner resident in Gibeah, the men of the place being Benjaminites.

¹⁷ Raising his eyes, he saw the traveller sitting in the public square of the town; the old man asked him, ‘Where have you come from? Where are you going?’

¹⁸ The other answered, ‘We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a place deep in the highlands of Ephraim. That is where I come from. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going home, but no one has offered to take me into his house,

¹⁹ although we have straw and provender for our donkeys, and I have bread and wine as well for myself and this maidservant and the young man who is travelling with your servant; we are short of nothing.’

²⁰ The old man answered, ‘Welcome to you! Let me see to all your needs; you cannot spend the night in the public square.’

²¹ So he took him jnto his house and gave the donkeys provender. The travellers washed their feet, then ate and drank.

²² As they were at their cheerful meal, some men from the town, scoundrels, came crowding together round the house; they battered on the door and said to the old man, the master of the house, ‘Send out the man who has come into your house, so that we can abuse him’.

²³ Then the master of the house went out to them and said, ‘No, my brothers; I implore you, do not commit this crime. This man has become my guest; do not commit such an infamy.[*b]

²⁴ Here is my daughter, she is a virgin; I will give her to you. Possess her, do what you please with her, but do not commit such an infamy against this man.’

²⁵ The men would not listen to him. So the Levite took his concubine and brought her out to them. They had intercourse with her and outraged her all night till morning; when dawn was breaking they let her go.

²⁶ At daybreak the girl came and fell on the threshold of her husband’s host, and she stayed there till it was full day.

²⁷ In the morning her husband got up and opened the door of the house; he was coming out to continue his journey when he saw the woman who had been his concubine lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold.

²⁸ He said to her, ‘Stand up; we must go’. There was no answer. Then he laid her across his donkey and began the journey home.

²⁹ Having reached his house, he picked up his knife, took hold of his concubine, and limb by limb cut her into twelve pieces; then he sent her all through the land of Israel.

³⁰ He instructed his messengers as follows, ‘This is what you are to say to the Israelites, “Has any man seen such a thing from the day the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, until this very day? Ponder on this, discuss it; then give your verdict.”‘ And all who saw it declared, ‘Never has such a thing been done or been seen since the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt’.