⁷ One day a young Levite, who had been living in Bethlehem in Judah, arrived in that area.

Visitors from the East

2 Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men^[a] from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking,

A Ruler from Bethlehem

Elimelech Moves His Family to Moab

1 In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him. 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.

⁵ “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they said, “for this is what the prophet wrote:

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. ² But she became angry with him^[a] and returned to her father’s home in Bethlehem.

After about four months,

¹⁹ So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).