Judges 20:32-48 ▼

32 The Benjaminites said, “We are defeating them as before.” But the Israelites said, “Let’s flee and draw them away from the city to the highways.”

33 So all the men of Israel got up from their places and took their battle positions at Baal-tamar, while the Israelites in ambush charged out of their places west of Geba.

34 Then ten thousand fit young men from all Israel made a frontal assault against Gibeah, and the battle was fierce, but the Benjaminites did not know that disaster was about to strike them.

35 The LORD defeated Benjamin in the presence of Israel, and on that day the Israelites slaughtered 25,100 men of Benjamin; all were armed.

36 Then the Benjaminites realized they had been defeated. The men of Israel had retreated before Benjamin, because they were confident in the ambush they had set against Gibeah.

37 The men in ambush had rushed quickly against Gibeah; they advanced and put the whole city to the sword.

38 The men of Israel had a prearranged signal with the men in ambush: when they sent up a great cloud of smoke from the city,

39 the men of Israel would return to the battle. When Benjamin had begun to strike them down, killing about thirty men of Israel, they said, “They’re defeated before us, just as they were in the first battle.”

40 But when the column of smoke began to go up from the city, Benjamin looked behind them, and the whole city was going up in smoke.

41 Then the men of Israel returned, and the men of Benjamin were terrified when they realized that disaster had struck them.

42 They retreated before the men of Israel toward the wilderness, but the battle overtook them, and those who came out of the cities slaughtered those between them.

43 They surrounded the Benjaminites, pursued them, and easily overtook them near Gibeah toward the east.

44 There were eighteen thousand men who died from Benjamin; all were warriors.

45 Then Benjamin turned and fled toward the wilderness to Rimmon Rock, and Israel killed five thousand men on the highways. They overtook them at Gidom and struck two thousand more dead.

46 All the Benjaminites who died that day were twenty-five thousand armed men; all were warriors.

47 But six hundred men escaped into the wilderness to Rimmon Rock and stayed there four months.

48 The men of Israel turned back against the other Benjaminites and killed them with their swords—the entire city, the animals, and everything that remained. They also burned all the cities that remained.