Judges 19-21 records one of the most horrific and folly-ridden episodes in human history. A Levite’s unfaithful live-in girlfriend left him. He went to bring her back. While in her hometown, some men demanded to have sex with him. Instead, he pushed his girlfriend out the door. Those men raped the woman until she died. The Levite cut her body into 12 pieces. Outraged, the people of Israel attacked the entire tribe of Benjamin because they would not give up the perpetrators. All but 600 of the Benjamite men were killed. Then Israel felt sorry for those men. They gave them permission to steal virgins. You can’t make this up! Why on earth did God preserve this story for us? The answer is in the last verse, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The Holy Spirit preserved this story to warn us just how bizarre doing what seems right in our own eyes can get. He wants us to see the depths to which we can sink if we throw off authority and do our own thing.