e concealed. Accordingly the virgins
came along playing, and suspected nothing of what was coming upon them,
and walked after an unguarded manner, so those that laid scattered
in the road, rose up, and caught hold of them: by this means these
Benjamites got them wives, and fell to agriculture, and took good care
to recover their former happy state. And thus was this tribe of the
Benjamites, after they had been in danger of entirely perishing, saved
in the manner forementioned, by the wisdom of the Israelites; and
accordingly it presently flourished, and soon increased to be a
multitude, and came to enjoy all other degrees of happiness. And such
was the conclusion of this war.

CHAPTER 3. How The Israelites After This Misfortune Grew Wicked And
Served The Assyrians; And How God Delivered Them By Othniel, Who Ruled
Over The Forty Years.

1. Now it happened that the tribe of Dan suffered in like manner
with the tribe of Benjamin; and it came to do so on the occasion
following:--When the Israelites had already left off the exercise of
their arms for war, and were intent upon their husbandry, the Canaanites
despised them, and brought together an army, not because they expected
to suffer by them, but because they had a mind to have a sure prospect
of treating the Hebrews ill when they pleased, and might thereby for the
time to come dwell in their own cities the more securely; they prepared
therefore their chariots, and gathered their soldiery together, their
cities also combined together, and drew over to them Askelon and Ekron,
which were within the tribe of Judah, and many more of those that lay
in the plain. They also forced the Danites to fly into the mountainous
country, and left them not the least portion of the plain country to set
their foot on. Since then these Danites were not able to fight them, and
had not land enough to sustain them, they sent five of their men into
the midland country, to seek for a land to which they might remove
their habitation. So these men went as far as the neighborhood of Mount
Libanus, and the fountains of the Lesser Jordan, at the great plain of
Sidon, a day's journey from the city; and when they had taken a view
of the land, and found it to be good and exceeding fruitful, they
acquainted their tribe with it, whereupon they made an expedition with
the army, and built there the city Dan, of the same name with the son of
Jacob, and of the same name with their own tribe.

2. The