don't be aunt agony

judges 20-21.

btw the past few days of G12 i did my devotion, but just didnt post them. there was samson in judges 14-16
and judges 17-19 was scary.it showed what depths you can plummet to when you have no king in your life.

and here in judges 20-21 comes israels response.

in chapter 19 there was a levite with a concubine. the concubine ran away and went back to her fathers house. so he went to get her back. on the way back they stayed at a town of benjamin. and the benjamites did exactly what sodom and gommorah did. they went to the house where the visitors were staying and demanded for the man so they could rape him to death. they foolishly offered the concubine and the house owner's daughter, but it was perhaps good for them that the benjamites wouldnt hear any of it. but they sent the concubine out to the crowd, who 'raped and abusd her throughout the night' and she died.

so the levite cuts her up and sends her limbs and body parts to every tribe in israel.
to get their attention to this "lewd and disgraceful act" they'd committed.

and israel warred against benjamin. israel lost 30 000 in the first two days. they started out with 400 000. so israel fasted and prayed and god promised them the victory. and they ambushed benjamin, losing only 30 men, and killed 25 000 benjamites. six hundred benjamites fled, but the towns and cities were completely destroyed by israel.

then israel gathered, and said they'd kill anyone who didnt turn up at gods assembly. they wiped out a city, but ll the virgins in the city they spared and gave to the benjamite survivors, be cause they didnt want to give their daughters to the benjomites. they'd said, 'cursed be anyone who gives a wife to a benjamite'


civil war! result of the great sin. at least it was purging.
what they did after wasnt so great.

there were two hundred benjamites without wives, so israel got them to attack a village that was having a festival. when the girls came out to dance, the two hundred men carried them off to be their wives.


all this because there was no king.



and they strayed from God because they got distracted. by the new things in their land, by other gods, by success, by the things that surrounded them.



LORD, GUARD MY HEART, GUARD MY MIND.