Study Desk

“Get up,” he told her. “Let’s go.” But there was no response. So the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.

Citizens of Gibeah came to attack me and surrounded the house at night. They intended to kill me, but they raped my concubine, and she died.

Hand over the wicked men in Gibeah so we can put them to death and eradicate evil from Israel.” But the Benjaminites would not listen to their fellow Israelites.

But the Israelite troops rallied and again took their battle positions in the same place where they positioned themselves on the first day.

Then ten thousand fit young men from all Israel made a frontal assault against Gibeah, and the battle was fierce, but the Benjaminites did not know that disaster was about to strike them.

But when the column of smoke began to go up from the city, Benjamin looked behind them, and the whole city was going up in smoke.

They retreated before the men of Israel toward the wilderness, but the battle overtook them, and those who came out of the cities slaughtered those between them.

But six hundred men escaped into the wilderness to Rimmon Rock and stayed there four months.

But the Israelites had compassion on their brothers, the Benjaminites, and said, “Today a tribe has been cut off from Israel.

Benjamin returned at that time, and Israel gave them the women they had kept alive from Jabesh-gilead. But there were not enough for them.

But we can’t give them our daughters as wives.” For the Israelites had sworn, “Anyone who gives a wife to a Benjaminite is cursed.”

But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Am I able to have any more sons who could become your husbands?

Again they wept loudly, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

But Ruth replied:

Where you die, I will die,and there I will be buried.May the Lord punish me,and do so severely,if anything but death separates you and me.

I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has opposed me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”

Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Don’t go and gather grain in another field, and don’t leave this one, but stay here close to my female servants.

Wash, put on perfumed oil, and wear your best clothes. Go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let the man know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.

Yes, it is true that I am a family redeemer, but there is a redeemer closer than I am.

Stay here tonight, and in the morning, if he wants to redeem you, that’s good. Let him redeem you. But if he doesn’t want to redeem you, as the Lord lives, I will. Now lie down until morning.”