Elkanah and His Family

1 There was a man named Elkanah who lived in Ramah in the region of Zuph^[a] in the hill country of Ephraim. He was the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, of Ephraim.

²⁵ The descendants of Elkanah included Amasai, Ahimoth, ²⁶ Elkanah, Zophai, Nahath, ²⁷ Eliab, Jeroham, Elkanah, and Samuel.^[a]

³⁴ Elkanah, Jeroham, Eliel, Toah,

Samuel’s Birth and Dedication

¹⁹ The entire family got up early the next morning and went to worship the Lord once more. Then they returned home to Ramah. When Elkanah slept with Hannah, the Lord remembered her plea,

² The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in the land of Judah. And when they reached Moab, they settled there.

Jesse Sends David to Saul’s Camp

¹² Now David was the son of a man named Jesse, an Ephrathite from Bethlehem in the land of Judah. Jesse was an old man at that time, and he had eight sons.

⁵ Finally, they entered the region of Zuph, and Saul said to his servant, “Let’s go home. By now my father will be more worried about us than about the donkeys!”

The Levite and His Concubine

19 Now in those days Israel had no king. There was a man from the tribe of Levi living in a remote area of the hill country of Ephraim. One day he brought home a woman from Bethlehem in Judah to be his concubine.

Micah’s Idols

17 There was a man named Micah, who lived in the hill country of Ephraim.

⁵ Jephthah captured the shallow crossings of the Jordan River, and whenever a fugitive from Ephraim tried to go back across, the men of Gilead would challenge him. “Are you a member of the tribe of Ephraim?” they would ask. If the man said, “No, I’m not,”