Study Desk

But his master replied, "We will not turn aside to the city of foreigners, where there are no Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah."

They stopped to go in and lodge in Gibeah. The Levite went in and sat down in the city square, but no one would take them into his home for the night.

That evening an old man from the hill country of Ephraim, who was residing in Gibeah (the men of that place were Benjamites) came in from his work in the field.

The Levite replied, "We are traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote hill country of Ephraim, where I am from. I went to Bethlehem in Judah, and now I am going to the house of the LORD; but no one has taken me into his home,

So he brought him to his house and fed his donkeys. And they washed their feet and ate and drank.

But the men would not listen to him. So the Levite took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.

In the morning, when her master got up and opened the doors of the house to go out on his journey, there was his concubine, collapsed in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold.

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

When he reached his house, he picked up a knife, took hold of his concubine, cut her limb by limb into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout the territory of Israel.

Then all the people stood as one man and said, "Not one of us will return to his tent or to his house.

Now the men of Israel had sworn an oath at Mizpah, saying, "Not one of us will give his daughter in marriage to a Benjamite."

And at that time, each of the Israelites returned from there to his own tribe and clan, each to his own inheritance.

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a certain man from Bethlehem in Judah, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the land of Moab.

The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah, and they entered the land of Moab and settled there.

When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab.

And Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, "Whose young woman is this?"

When Ruth got up to glean, Boaz ordered his young men, "Even if she gathers among the sheaves, do not insult her.

Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "May he be blessed by the LORD, who has not withdrawn his kindness from the living or the dead." Naomi continued, "The man is a close relative. He is one of our kinsman-redeemers."

And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, "My daughter, it is good for you to work with his young women, so that nothing will happen to you in another field."