The Judges & Ruth

And they say, `Who is that one out of the tribes of Israel who hath not come up unto Jehovah to Mizpeh?' and lo, none hath come in unto the camp from Jabesh-Gilead--unto the assembly.

And the people numbered themselves, and lo, there is not there a man of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead.

And the company send there twelve thousand men of the sons of valour, and command them, saying, `Go--and ye have smitten the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead by the mouth of the sword, even the women and the infants.

And this is the thing which ye do; every male, and every woman knowing the lying of a male, ye devote.'

And they find out of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead four hundred young women, virgins, who have not known man by the lying of a male, and they bring them in unto the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

And all the company send, and speak, unto the sons of Benjamin who are in the rock Rimmon, and proclaim to them peace;

and Benjamin turneth back at that time, and they give to them the women whom they have kept alive of the women of Jabesh-Gilead, and they have not found for all of them so.

And the people repented concerning Benjamin, for Jehovah had made a breach among the tribes of Israel.

And the elders of the company say, `What do we do to the remnant for wives--for the women have been destroyed out of Benjamin?'

And they say, `A possession of an escaped party is to Benjamin, and a tribe is not blotted out from Israel;

and we--we are not able to give to them wives out of our daughters, for the sons of Israel have sworn, saying, Cursed is he who is giving a wife to Benjamin.'

And they say, `Lo, a festival of Jehovah is in Shiloh, from time to time, which is on the north of Beth-El, at the rising of the sun, by the highway which is going up from Beth-El to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.'

And they command the sons of Benjamin, saying, `Go--and ye have laid wait in the vineyards,

and have seen, and lo, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances--then ye have gone out from the vineyards, and caught for you each his wife out of the daughters of Shiloh, and gone to the land of Benjamin;

and it hath been, when their fathers or their brethren come in to plead unto us, that we have said unto them, Favour us by them, for we have not taken to each his wife in battle, for ye--ye have not given to them at this time that ye are guilty.'

And the sons of Benjamin do so, and take women according to their number, out of the dancers whom they have taken violently away; and they go, and turn back unto their inheritance, and build the cities, and dwell in them.

And the sons of Israel go up and down thence at that time, each to his tribe, and to his family; and they go out thence each to his inheritance.

In those days there is no king in Israel; each doth that which is right in his own eyes.

And it cometh to pass, in the days of the judging of the judges, that there is a famine in the land, and there goeth a man from Beth-Lehem-Judah to sojourn in the fields of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

And the name of the man is Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites from Beth-Lehem-Judah; and they come into the fields of Moab, and are there.

And Elimelech husband of Naomi dieth, and she is left, she and her two sons;

and they take to them wives, Moabitesses: the name of the one is Orpah, and the name of the second Ruth; and they dwell there about ten years.

And they die also, both of them--Mahlon and Chilion--and the woman is left of her two children and of her husband.

And she riseth, she and her daughters-in-law, and turneth back from the fields of Moab, for she hath heard in the fields of Moab that God hath looked after His people, --to give to them bread.

And she goeth out from the place where she hath been, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they go in the way to turn back unto the land of Judah.