The first lost tribe ironically gets saved and doesn’t become one of what’s known now as the ten lost tribes of Israel.

Judges 21 is the last chapter of this book and nearly closes out this era. We have the book of Ruth which sets us up to where Israel will have a king.

The people are still doing what is right in their own eyes. They still don’t have a king, even though they could be ruled with God as their king.

They are lamenting the loss of Benjamin and decide to set it right so that one of the tribes won’t be cut off.

They seemingly have killed too many women and the tribe of Benjamin needs wives to keep going. They come up with two schemes to get them wives, and they do.

They are taking more seriously their own words and oaths than God’s law. They turned to God in what they viewed as a crisis moment, but they seem to have fallen right back into acting in their own wisdom instead of seeking the Lord.

We need to walk with the Lord every day and have a relationship with Him based on love, not need.

We’ve confused those words. If we truly loved each other when we married, there would be no divorce. Love NEVER fails. People say, “I love you” to each other, but they are really meaning, “I need you.”

That person is meeting a need in their life at that time. When they stop meeting the need, they get that need met elsewhere, and it spells disaster for the marriage if there is repentance and a choice to love, to truly love each other.

True love doesn’t seek its own. It’s selfless. It’s other focused. It can’t be lost or broken or fade. It’s perfect, pure, eternal. Because God is love.