Judges 19:23
And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly. And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.
The book containing this appeal takes its name from the leaders God raised up from time to time and whose deeds it records, men generally called to service in a time of great national crisis when the nation had gone into captivity and for that reason called saviours, the last of the line being Samuel, and the book was written about the time there was a king in Israel by Samuel or Nathan. The appeal stands in chapters 17-21, which record events from the early part of the period of the judges and are placed out of chronological order, with the main story of the book ending with chapter 16 and the events of chapters 17-21 coming earlier in time than the events of chapters 11-16. It belongs to the account of the crime at Gibeah, recorded among episodes of Israel's fearful backsliding and God's mercy and goodness, an account of gross immorality in Israel.
In the verse the master of the house goes out to the men outside and pleads with them not to commit a wicked act against his guest who has come into his house. The episode exposes how misplaced priorities can make conventional hospitality seem more important than a woman's virtue, though no custom excuses sin. The account shows how badly society can be corrupted when people treat their own judgment as the standard of right and wrong, for human reason and conscience without God's revelation are perverted by selfishness, so that wrong can appear right and right can appear wrong, while God's holy Law is the perfect standard of righteousness. The backsliding the passage records shows that such wickedness cannot be done with impunity.