¹⁷ They continued, “Let’s make sure that there’s an inheritance for the survivors of the tribe of Benjamin, so that a tribe won’t be blotted out from Israel. ¹⁸ But we can’t give them wives from our own daughters, since we’ve^[a] taken this vow: ‘May the Lord curse^[b] anyone who gives his daughter as^[c] a wife to the tribe of Benjamin!’”

¹⁹ So they concluded, “Look, there’s a festival to the Lord every year in Shiloh on the north side of Bethel, south of Lebonah and on the east side of the highway that runs from Bethel to Shechem…”