⁸ And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, ^(A)“Go, return each to her mother’s house. ^(B)The Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt ^(C)with the dead and with me.

⁵ Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died; so the woman survived her two sons and her husband.

The Christian Home^(A)

^18 (B)Wives, submit to your own husbands, ^(C)as is fitting in the Lord.

²⁰ Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, ^(A)“Blessed be he of the Lord, who ^(B)has not forsaken His kindness to the living and the dead!” And Naomi said to her, “This man is a relation of ours, ^(C)one of ^[a]our close relatives.”

Marriage—Christ and the Church^(A)

²² Wives, ^(B)submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

¹⁶ The Lord grant mercy to the ^(A)household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; ¹⁷ but when he arrived in Rome, he sought me out very zealously and found me. ¹⁸ The Lord ^(B)grant to him that he may find mercy from the Lord ^(C)in that Day—and you know very well how many ways he ^(D)ministered ^[a]to me at Ephesus.

^24 (A)knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; ^(B)for^[a] you serve the Lord Christ.

^2 (A)“Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: ³ “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

¹⁵ And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, ^(A)choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether ^(B)the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of ^[a]the River, or ^(C)the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. ^(D)But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶ So the people answered and said: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; ¹⁷ for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed. ¹⁸ And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. ^(E)We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.”

¹⁹ But Joshua said to the people, ^(F)“You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a ^(G)holy God. He is ^(H)a jealous God; ^(I)He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. ^20 (J)If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, ^(K)then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.”

²¹ And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord!”

²² So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that ^(L)you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.”

And they said, “We are witnesses!”

²³ “Now therefore,” he said, ^(M)“put away the foreign gods which are among you, and ^(N)incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.”

²⁴ And the people ^(O)said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!”

²⁵ So Joshua ^(P)made^[b] a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance ^(Q)in Shechem.

²⁶ Then Joshua ^(R)wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took ^(S)a large stone, and ^(T)set it up there ^(U)under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. ²⁷ And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be ^(V)a witness to us, for ^(W)it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.” ²⁸ So ^(X)Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.