It happened in the days when there was no king over the children of Israel that a man went from his home to another city to get his lady from her Dad’s house.

 

 

 

They stayed with the Dad and had feasting with him on bread and wine for a few days and then left to go to the man’s home.

 

On the way home it was late so they stayed all night in one of Israel’s towns in the family of Benjamin.

The men of that town were children of Israel, but they followed the bad one a lot. They surrounded the house where the man was staying and yelled for the man to come out.

 

 

 

 

 

They were going to hurt him real bad.

The man let his lady go out instead and they hurt her so bad she died.

 

The man went home and sent a message to the other families in Israel about how much that town was following the bad ones and told the bad thing that had happened to his lady.

The rest of the families of Israel gathered together and went to the town and told them to send out the bad ones who had done this thing but the children of Benjamin would not send them out.

So the rest of the families of the children of Israel gathered the warriors and got ready to fight against the bad ones in that town.

 

 

They asked God, Who should go up first to fight against them? And God said, Judah

 

 

The first day of fighting the bad ones won the battle and 20,000 of Israel’s soldiers died.

 

 

 

 

 

So they went to talk to God about it.

 

They were weeping before God and said, Shall we go again to fight against them?

 

The Lord told them to go and 18,000 of Israel’s soldiers died and went to heaven.

 

 

 

 

 

They went to ask God again, and God told them, Go up again tomorrow. I have given you to win the battle.

 

 

So they made a plan that drew the men out of the city and set the city on fire.

They won the battle like God said and cleaned out all the bad ones in that family so there could be good things from God in those days when there was no king in Israel and every man did what he thought was right.