Judges 19:1-30

These were the days when there was no king ruling in Israel. Now there was a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim. He took as his mistress a woman from Bethlehem in Judah, but she eventually was unfaithful. She deserted him and returned to her father’s house in Bethlehem where she stayed for four months. The Levite set out with his servant and a pair of donkeys to find her, win back her heart, and try to persuade her to return home with him. She received him into her father’s house, and when the girl’s father saw him, he received him warmly. His father-in-law, the girl’s father, pressed him to stay, so the Levite stayed with him three days, and they ate and drank together. On the fourth day, early in the morning, he started to leave, but his father-in-law, the girl’s father, insisted, “Eat something first to give you strength for your journey; then you can leave.” After the two of them sat down and had breakfast together, the girl’s father said to the Levite, “You might as well stay overnight and enjoy yourself.” The Levite started to leave, but his mistress’ father kept urging him to stay until he turned back and spent another night there. Early in the morning of the fifth day, he was about to leave when the girl’s father said, “Come, have breakfast.” They ate together and lingered there until past noon. Then the Levite, his mistress, and his attendant started to leave. But his mistress’ father said to him, “Look, the day is almost gone; stay another night here and enjoy yourself. Tomorrow, you can start early on your journey and head for home.” But the Levite refused; he and his two donkeys, his servant, and his mistress set out and traveled as far as the vicinity of Jebus—that is, Jerusalem. Late in the day, they were near Jebus, and the servant said to his master, “Let’s go into this town of the Jebusites and spend the night there.” His master said to him, “No. They are not of Israel. We will not enter a town of foreigners. We will go on to Gibeah. Come,” he said to his attendant, “we’ll go to another town and spend the night either in Gibeah or in Ramah.” So they traveled on, and as the sun set, they were near Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin. They turned off there and entered Gibeah to spend the night. The Levite, his servant, and his mistress sat down in the town square, but nobody invited them indoors to spend the night. In the evening, an old man came into town from working in his field. This man was from the hill country of Ephraim and resided at Gibeah, where the townspeople were of the tribe of Benjamin. He happened to see the travelers sitting in the town square. The old man inquired, “Where do you come from? And where are you headed?” The Levite replied, “We’re just passing through. We’re traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the other end of the hill country of Ephraim, where I live. I just made a journey to Bethlehem of Judah, and now we’re on our way to the House of YAHWEH, but nobody has offered us hospitality. We have plenty of straw and feed for our donkeys, and bread and wine for me and the woman and for the attendant with us. All we need is a roof over our heads; we lack nothing.” “Rest easy,” said the old man. “I’ll take care of all your needs. You won’t need to spend the night in the square.” So the old man took them into his house. He prepared fodder for the donkeys; then they washed their feet, and they ate and drank together. They were enjoying themselves when suddenly some perverted and depraved men of the town surrounded the house and pounded on the door. They called to the aged owner of the house, “Bring out the man you invited into your house so that we can have sex with him.” The owner of the house went out to reason with them. “Please, my friends,” he said. “Don’t commit such a wicked act. This man is my guest! Do not perpetrate this outrage. Look, here are the man’s mistress and my virgin daughter—let me bring them out to you. Do what you wish with them. Have your pleasure with them, but don’t do such an outrageous thing to this man.” But the men refused to listen to him, so the Levite seized his mistress and pushed her out to them. They raped her repeatedly all night until morning and finally let her go when dawn broke. At sunrise the woman staggered back to the house where her master had spent the night and collapsed at the entrance of the man’s house. When the Levite arose in the morning, he opened the doors of the house to start on his journey, and he saw his mistress lying at the entrance of the house with her hands on the threshold. “Get up,” he said to her, “it’s time to go.” But there was no response, for she was dead. The man placed her body on the donkey and set out for home. When he arrived home, he took a sword, cut the corpse of his mistress limb by limb into twelve pieces, and sent them, one for each tribe, throughout Israel. And everyone who saw this horrible display, cried out, “Never have we seen such brutality take place from the day we came up from the land of Egypt to this day. We need to decide what we should do about this!”