¹⁷ When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, “Where are you going? Where did you come from?”^(A)

¹⁸ He answered, “We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim where I live. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going to the house of the Lord.^[a](B) No one has taken me in for the night. ¹⁹ We have both straw and fodder^(C) for our donkeys^(D) and bread and wine^(E) for ourselves your servants—me, the woman and the young man with us. We don’t need anything.”