Study Desk

The morning of the fifth day, he got up early to leave; but the girl's father said, "Why don't you have something to eat, and leave this afternoon?" So the two men ate.

But the man wouldn't stay that night; so he got up and left with his concubine and his two saddled donkeys; and they arrived at Y'vus, also known as Yerushalayim.

But his master said to him, "We won't go into a city of foreigners which doesn't belong to the people of Isra'el. We'll go on across to Giv‘ah."

He replied, "We're crossing from Beit-Lechem in Y'hudah to the far side of the Efrayim hills. That's where I'm from. I went to Beit-Lechem in Y'hudah, and now I'm going to the house of Adonai ; but there's no one here who will let me spend the night in his home.

Here's my daughter, who's a virgin, and his concubine. I'll bring them out. Mistreat them, do what you want to them, but don't do such a degrading thing to this man."

He said to her, "Get up! Let's go!" But there was no answer. So he loaded her body on the donkey and began his trip home.

and the men in Giv‘ah attacked me and surrounded the house I was staying in at night. They wanted to kill me, but instead they raped my concubine to death.

Turn over these good-for-nothings who are in Giv‘ah at once, so that we can execute them and rid Isra'el of such evil." But the people of Binyamin refused to obey the order of their kinsmen the people of Isra'el.

But the army of Binyamin came out of Giv‘ah and slaughtered the army of Isra'el; on that day 22,000 men fell.

But Binyamin went out against them from Giv‘ah the second day and slaughtered the army of Isra'el; 18,000 men armed with swords fell.

The army of Binyamin said, "They're defeated, just as before." But the army of Isra'el said, "Let's run off and draw them away from the city onto the roads."

Ten thousand men chosen out of all Isra'el came over to attack Giv‘ah, and the combat was intense. But the army of Binyamin didn't know that they were about to be defeated.

But when the smoke signal began rising from the city, the men of Binyamin looked behind them and saw the whole city going up to the sky in smoke.

they turned their backs on the men of Isra'el and made for the road to the desert. But the battle followed them, and those who came out of the city destroyed them from the rear.

But 600 turned and fled toward the desert to the Rock of Rimmon, and lived there four months.

So Binyamin returned at that time, and the people of Isra'el gave them the women they had kept alive of the women from Yavesh-Gil‘ad. But those weren't enough for them.

May Adonai grant you security in the home of a new husband." Then she kissed them, but they began weeping aloud.

Again they wept aloud. Then ‘Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Rut stuck with her.

But Rut said, "Don't press me to leave you and stop following you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.

Where you die, I will die; and there I will be buried. May Adonai bring terrible curses on me, and worse ones as well, if anything but death separates you and me."