The Daily Audio Bible

Wives for the Benjaminites

21 The Israelites had made a pledge at Mizpah, declaring, “None of us will allow his daughter to marry a Benjaminite.” ² But the people came to Bethel and sat there until evening before God, raising their voices and crying bitterly. ³ “Lord, God of Israel,” they said, “why has this happened among us that as of today one tribe will be missing from Israel?” ⁴ And the next day, the people got up early and built an altar there. They offered entirely burned offerings and well-being sacrifices.

⁵ Then the Israelites asked, “Were there any out of all the tribes of Israel who didn’t march up to the assembly before the Lord?” Indeed, they had made a solemn pledge that anyone who didn’t march up before the Lord at Mizpah would be put to death. ⁶ The Israelites had a change of heart concerning their relatives the Benjaminites. They said, “Today one tribe has been cut off from Israel. ⁷ What can we do to provide wives for the ones who are left, since we ourselves have made a pledge before the Lord not to allow our daughters to marry them?” ⁸ So they asked, “Is there anyone from the tribes of Israel who didn’t march up before the Lord at Mizpah?” There was! No one from Jabesh-gilead had come to the assembly at the camp. ⁹ When the people’s attendance was taken, not one of those who lived in Jabesh-gilead had been there.

¹⁰ The community dispatched twelve thousand warriors there with these orders: “Go kill all the people in Jabesh-gilead, including women and children. ¹¹ Here’s what you should do: Exterminate every man and every woman who has slept with a man.” ¹² Among the people of Jabesh-gilead, they found four hundred young women who had not known a man intimately or slept with one, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. ¹³ The whole community then sent word to the Benjaminites who were at the rock of Rimmon and offered them a truce.^{[a] 14} So the Benjaminites returned at that time, and they gave them the women from Jabesh-gilead that they had allowed to live. Even so, there weren’t enough for them.

¹⁵ Since the people had a change of heart concerning the Benjaminites because the Lord had caused a rupture in the tribes of Israel, ¹⁶ the community elders said, “What can we do to provide wives for the ones who are left, seeing that the Benjaminite women have been destroyed? ¹⁷ There must be a surviving line for those who remain from Benjamin,” they continued, “so that a tribe won’t be erased from Israel. ¹⁸ But we can’t allow our daughters to marry them, for we Israelites have made this pledge: ‘Let anyone who provides a wife for Benjamin be cursed!’ ¹⁹ However,” they said, “the annual festival of the Lord is under way in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, east of the main road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.” ²⁰ So they instructed the Benjaminites, “Go and hide like an ambush in the vineyards ²¹ and watch. At the moment the women of Shiloh come out to participate in the dances, rush out from the vineyards. Each one of you, capture a wife for yourself from the women of Shiloh and go back to the land of Benjamin. ²² When their fathers or brothers come to us to object, we’ll tell them, ‘Do us a favor for their sake. We didn’t capture enough women for every man during the battle, and this way you are not guilty because you didn’t give them anything willingly.’” ²³ And that is what the Benjaminites did. They took wives for their whole group from the dancers whom they abducted. They returned to their territory, rebuilt the cities, and lived in them. ²⁴ Likewise, the Israelites set out from there at that time, heading home to their respective tribes and clans. They all left there for their own territories.

²⁵ In those days there was no king in Israel; each person did what they thought to be right.

The family in Moab

1 During the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. A man with his wife and two sons went from Bethlehem of Judah to dwell in the territory of Moab. ² The name of that man was Elimelech, the name of his wife was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They entered the territory of Moab and settled there.

³ But Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died. Then only she was left, along with her two sons. ⁴ They took wives for themselves, Moabite women; the name of the first was Orpah and the name of the second was Ruth. And they lived there for about ten years.

⁵ But both of the sons, Mahlon and Chilion, also died. Only the woman was left, without her two children and without her husband.

⁶ Then she arose along with her daughters-in-law to return from the field of Moab, because while in the territory of Moab she had heard that the Lord had paid attention to his people by providing food for them. ⁷ She left the place where she had been, and her two daughters-in-law went with her. They went along the road to return to the land of Judah.

⁸ Naomi said to her daughters-in-law, “Go, turn back, each of you to the household of your mother. May the Lord deal faithfully with you, just as you have done with the dead and with me. ⁹ May the Lord provide for you so that you may find security, each woman in the household of her husband.” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.

¹⁰ But they replied to her, “No, instead we will return with you, to your people.”

¹¹ Naomi replied, “Turn back, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Will there again be sons in my womb, that they would be husbands for you? ¹² Turn back, my daughters. Go. I am too old for a husband. If I were to say that I have hope, even if I had a husband tonight, and even more, if I were to bear sons— ¹³ would you wait until they grew up? Would you refrain from having a husband? No, my daughters. This is more bitter for me than for you, since the Lord’s will has come out against me.”

¹⁴ Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth stayed with her. ¹⁵ Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law is returning to her people and to her gods. Turn back after your sister-in-law.”

¹⁶ But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to abandon you, to turn back from following after you. 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. ¹⁷ Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord do this to me and more so if even death separates me from you.” ¹⁸ When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her about it.

¹⁹ So both of them went along until they arrived at Bethlehem. When they arrived at Bethlehem, the whole town was excited on account of them, and the women of the town asked, “Can this be Naomi?”

²⁰ She replied to them, “Don’t call me Naomi,^[b] but call me Mara,^[c] for the Almighty^[d] has made me very bitter. ²¹ I went away full, but the Lord has returned me empty. Why would you call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has deemed me guilty?”

²² Thus Naomi returned. And Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, returned with her from the territory of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Jesus in Samaria

⁴ Jesus had to go through Samaria. ⁵ He came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, which was near the land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from his journey, so he sat down at the well. It was about noon.

⁷ A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” ⁸ His disciples had gone into the city to buy him some food.

⁹ The Samaritan woman asked, “Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.)

¹⁰ Jesus responded, “If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would be asking him and he would give you living water.”

¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and the well is deep. Where would you get this living water? ¹² You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave this well to us, and he drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will never be thirsty and will never need to come here to draw water!”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, get your husband, and come back here.”

¹⁷ The woman replied, “I don’t have a husband.”

“You are right to say, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus answered. ¹⁸ “You’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn’t your husband. You’ve spoken the truth.”

¹⁹ The woman said, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you and your people say that it is necessary to worship in Jerusalem.”

²¹ Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you and your people will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You and your people worship what you don’t know; we worship what we know because salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the time is coming—and is here!—when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth. The Father looks for those who worship him this way. ²⁴ God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth.”

²⁵ The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.”

²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I Am—the one who speaks with you.”^[a]

²⁷ Just then, Jesus’ disciples arrived and were shocked that he was talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸ The woman put down her water jar and went into the city. She said to the people, ²⁹ “Come and see a man who has told me everything I’ve done! Could this man be the Christ?” ³⁰ They left the city and were on their way to see Jesus.

³¹ In the meantime the disciples spoke to Jesus, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”

³² Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

³³ The disciples asked each other, “Has someone brought him food?”

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “I am fed by doing the will of the one who sent me and by completing his work. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘Four more months and then it’s time for harvest’? Look, I tell you: open your eyes and notice that the fields are already ripe for the harvest. ³⁶ Those who harvest are receiving their pay and gathering fruit for eternal life so that those who sow and those who harvest can celebrate together. ³⁷ This is a true saying, that one sows and another harvests. ³⁸ I have sent you to harvest what you didn’t work hard for; others worked hard, and you will share in their hard work.”

³⁹ Many Samaritans in that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s word when she testified, “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more believed because of his word, ⁴² and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is truly the savior of the world.”

Psalm 105