Study Desk

The Lord 's messenger said to Manoah, "If I stay, I will not eat your food. But if you want to make a burnt sacrifice to the Lord , you should offer it." (He said this because Manoah did not know that he was the Lord 's messenger.)

The Lord 's messenger said to him, "You should not ask me my name, because you cannot comprehend it."

Manoah said to his wife, "We will certainly die, because we have seen a supernatural being!"

But his father and mother said to him, "Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines." But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, because she is the right one for me."

Now his father and mother did not realize this was the Lord 's doing, because he was looking for an opportunity to stir up trouble with the Philistines (for at that time the Philistines were ruling Israel).

She cried on his shoulder until the party was almost over. Finally, on the seventh day, he told her because she had nagged him so much. Then she told the young men the solution to the riddle.

The Philistines asked, "Who did this?" They were told, "Samson, the Timnite's son-in-law, because the Timnite took Samson's bride and gave her to his best man." So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father.

Samson said to them, "Because you did this, I will get revenge against you before I quit fighting."

Micah said, "Now I know the Lord will make me rich, because I have this Levite as my priest."

In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the Danite tribe was looking for a place to settle, because at that time they did not yet have a place to call their own among the tribes of Israel.

No one came to the rescue because the city was far from Sidon and they had no dealings with anyone. The city was in a valley near Beth Rehob. The Danites rebuilt the city and occupied it.

I grabbed hold of my concubine and carved her up and sent the pieces throughout the territory occupied by Israel, because they committed such an unthinkable atrocity in Israel.

Then the Benjaminites saw they were defeated. The Israelites retreated before Benjamin, because they had confidence in the men they had hid in ambush outside Gibeah.

When the Israelites turned around, the Benjaminites panicked because they could see that disaster was on their doorstep.

The people regretted what had happened to Benjamin because the Lord had weakened the Israelite tribes.

So she decided to return home from the region of Moab, accompanied by her daughters-in-law, because while she was living in Moab she had heard that the Lord had shown concern for his people, reversing the famine by providing abundant crops.

But she replied to them, "Don't call me ‘Naomi'! Call me ‘Mara' because the Sovereign One has treated me very harshly.

Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "May he be rewarded by the Lord because he has shown loyalty to the living on behalf of the dead!" Then Naomi said to her, "This man is a close relative of ours; he is our guardian."

The village women said to Naomi, "May the Lord be praised because he has not left you without a guardian today! May he become famous in Israel!

But he would give a double portion to Hannah, because he especially loved her. Now the Lord had not enabled her to have children.