Judges 21:10
And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children. And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children.
The closing chapters of Judges, chapters 17 through 21, record events from the early part of the period of the judges, while the main narrative of the book ends with chapter 16. Those final chapters occurred chronologically before the events recorded in chapters 11-16. The verse belongs to the account of Israel's deeply fallen condition in the period before Samuel the prophet.
Specifically, it is part of the account of the crime at Gibeah and the tribe of Benjamin's identification with its people. It belongs to a pitiful record of backsliding that brought consequent disgrace and punishment. It records the order to send twelve thousand of the valiantest men to massacre the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, including women and children.
It illustrates putting conventional hospitality above female virtue and tribal clannishness above rendering justice. The fact that the narrative does not condemn the act at that point does not approve or excuse it, since Scripture elsewhere gives principles that condemn such actions and exposes their sinfulness through their consequences. The same kind of sin is still seen today, yet there is never an excuse for sin.