¹⁶ Then the elders of the congregation said, ^(A)“What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?” ¹⁷ And they said, “There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, that a tribe may not be blotted out from Israel. ¹⁸ Yet we cannot give them wives from our daughters.” ^(B)For the people of Israel had sworn, “Cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin.”