Judges 20:29-41

Contemporary English Version

²⁹ The Israelites surrounded Gibeah, but stayed where they could not be seen. ³⁰ Then the next day, they took the same positions as twice before, ^31-41 but this time they had a different plan. They said, “When the men of Benjamin attack, we will run off and let them chase us away from the town and into the country roads.”

The soldiers of Benjamin attacked the Israelite army and started pushing it back from the town. They killed about 30 Israelites in the fields and along the road between Gibeah and Bethel. The men of Benjamin were thinking, “We're mowing them down like we did before.”

The Israelites were running away, but they headed for Baal-Tamar, where they regrouped. They had set an ambush, and they were sure it would work. Ten thousand of Israel's best soldiers had been hiding west of Gibeah,^[a] and as soon as the men of Benjamin chased the Israelites into the countryside, these 10,000 soldiers made a surprise attack on the town gates. They dashed in and captured Gibeah, killing everyone there. Then they set the town on fire, because the smoke would be the signal for the other Israelite soldiers to turn and attack the soldiers of Benjamin.

The fighting had been so heavy around the soldiers of Benjamin, that they did not know the trouble they were in. But then they looked back and saw clouds of smoke rising from the town. They looked in front and saw the soldiers of Israel turning to attack. This terrified them, because they realized that something horrible was happening. And it was horrible—over 25,000^[b] soldiers of Benjamin died that day, and those who were left alive knew that the Lord had given Israel the victory.