Bible Verses About Government

So he took the ancients of the city, and thorns and briers of the desert, and tore them with the same, and cut in pieces the men of Soccoth.

And as they pressed hard upon them, the ancients of Galaad went to fetch Jephte out of the land of Tob to help them:

And they said to him: Come thou, and be our prince, and fight against the children of Ammon.

And he answered them: Are not you the men that hated me, and cast me out of my father's house, and now you are come to me, constrained by necessity?

And the princes of Galaad said to Jephte: For this cause we are now come to thee, that thou mayst go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be head over all the inhabitants of Galaad.

Jephte also said to them: If you be come to me sincerely, that I should fight for you against the children of Ammon, and the Lord shall deliver them into my hand, shall I be your prince?

They answered him: The Lord, who heareth these things, he himself is mediator and witness that we will do as we have promised.

Jephte therefore went with the princes of Galaad, and all the people made him their prince. And Jephte spoke all his words before the Lord in Maspha.

And Booz, taking ten men of the ancients of the city, said to them: Sit ye down here.

They sat down, and he spoke to the kinsman: Noemi, who is returned from the country of Moab will sell a parcel of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech.

I would have thee to understand this, and would tell thee before all that sit here, and before the ancients of my people. If thou wilt take possession of it by the right of kindred: buy it, and possess it: but if it please thee not, tell me so, that I may know what I have to do. For there is no near kinsman besides thee, who art first, and me, who am second. But he answered: I will buy the field.

And Booz said to him: When thou shalt buy the field at the woman's hand, thou must take also Ruth, the Moabitess, who was the wife of the deceased: to raise up the name of thy kinsman in his inheritance.

He answered: I yield up my right of next akin: for I must not cut off the posterity of my own family. Do thou make use of my privilege, which I profess I do willingly forego.

Now this in former times was the manner in Israel between kinsmen, that if at any time one yielded his right to another: that the grant might be sure, the man put off his shoe and gave it to his neighbour; this was a testimony of cession of right in Israel.

So Booz said to his kinsman: Put off thy shoe. And immediately he took it off from his foot.

And he said to the ancients, and to all the people: You are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and Chelion's, and Mahalon's, of the hand of Noemi:

And have taken to wife Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of Mahalon, to raise up the name of the deceased in his inheritance lest his name be cut off, from among his family and his brethren and his people. You, I say, are witnesses of this thing.

Then all the people that were in the gate, and the ancients, answered: We are witnesses: The Lord make this woman who cometh into thy house, like Rachel, and Lia, who built up the house of Israel: that she may be an example of virtue in Ephrata, and may have a famous name in Bethlehem:

So she wrote letters in Achab's name, and sealed them with his ring, and sent them to the ancients, and the chief men that were in his city, and that dwelt with Naboth.

And this was the tenor of the letters: Proclaim a fast, and make Naboth sit among the chief of the people;

And suborn two men, sons of Belial, against him. and let them bear false witness; that he hath blasphemed God and the king: and then carry him out, and stone him, and so let him die.

And the men of his city, the ancients and nobles, that dwelt with him in the city, did as Jezabel had commanded them, and as it was written in the letters which she had sent to them;

They proclaimed a fast, and made Naboth sit among the chief of the people.

And bringing two men, sons of the devil, they made them sit against him: and they, like men of the devil, bore witness against him before the people: saying: Naboth hath blasphemed God and the king. Wherefore they brought him forth without the city, and stoned him to death.

And they sent to Jezabel, saying: Naboth is stoned, and is dead.