Study Desk

Ruth answered, "Please don't tell me to leave you and return home! I will go where you go, I will live where you live; your people will be my people, your God will be my God.

Then she told them, "Don't call me Naomi any longer! Call me Mara, because God has made my life bitter.

I had everything when I left, but the Lord has brought me back with nothing. How can you still call me Naomi, when God has turned against me and made my life so hard?"

I pray that the Lord God of Israel will reward you for what you have done. And now that you have come to him for protection, I pray that he will bless you."

Naomi said, "Where did you work today? Whose field was it? God bless the man who treated you so well!" Then Ruth told her that she had worked in the field of a man named Boaz.

Stay here until morning, then I will find out if he is willing to look after you. If he isn't, I promise by the living God to do it myself. Now go back to sleep until morning.

Eli replied, "You may go home now and stop worrying. I'm sure the God of Israel will answer your prayer."

No other god is like you. We're safer with you than on a high mountain.

If you harm another person, God can help make things right between the two of you. But if you commit a crime against the Lord , no one can help you!" But the Lord had already decided to kill them. So he kept them from listening to their father.

I am the Lord , the God of Israel. I promised to always let your family serve me as priests, but now I tell you that I cannot do this any longer! I honor anyone who honors me, but I put a curse on anyone who hates me.

Eli said, "What did God say to you? Tell me everything. I pray that God will punish you terribly if you don't tell me every word he said!"

They brought it into the temple of their god Dagon and put it next to the statue of Dagon, which they worshiped.

Finally, they said, "The God of Israel did this. He is the one who caused all this trouble for us and our god Dagon. We've got to get rid of this chest."

The people of Ashdod had all the Philistine rulers come to Ashdod, and they asked them, "What can we do with the sacred chest that belongs to the God of Israel?" "Send it to Gath," the rulers answered. But after they took it there,

so they sent the sacred chest to Ekron. But before they could take it through the town gates, the people of Ekron started screaming, "They've brought the sacred chest that belongs to the God of Israel! It will kill us and our families too!"

The people of Ekron called for another meeting of the Philistine rulers and told them, "Send this chest back where it belongs. Then it won't kill us." Everyone was in a panic, because God was causing a lot of people to die,

"Don't send it back without a gift," the priests and fortunetellers answered. "Send along something to Israel's God to make up for taking the chest in the first place. Then you will be healed, and you will find out why the Lord was causing you so much trouble."

So make five gold models of the sores and five gold models of the rats that are wiping out your crops. If you honor the God of Israel with this gift, maybe he will stop causing trouble for you and your gods and your crops.

Don't be like the Egyptians and their king. They were stubborn, but when Israel's God was finished with them, they had to let Israel go.

Some of the men of Beth-Shemesh looked inside the sacred chest, and the Lord God killed seventy of them. This made the people of Beth-Shemesh very sad,