When he looked up and saw the traveler in the town square, the old man said, “Where are you heading? Where do you come from?”

When he got home, he took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces. Then he sent the pieces throughout Israel.

The men of Israel marched out to fight Benjamin; they arranged their battle lines against Gibeah.

The men hiding in ambush made a mad dash to Gibeah. They attacked and put the sword to the entire city.

They retreated before the Israelites, taking the road to the wilderness. But the battle overtook them as men from the surrounding cities struck them down.

That day twenty-five thousand sword-wielding Benjaminites fell in battle, all of them capable warriors.

So she decided to return home from the region of Moab, accompanied by her daughters-in-law, because while she was living in Moab she had heard that the Lord had shown concern for his people, reversing the famine by providing abundant crops.

When she got up to gather grain, Boaz told his male servants, “Let her gather grain even among the bundles! Don’t chase her off!

Now Boaz, with whose female servants you worked, is our close relative. Look, tonight he is winnowing barley at the threshing floor.

So she slept beside him until morning. She woke up while it was still dark. Boaz thought, “No one must know that a woman visited the threshing floor.”

and she returned to her mother-in-law.When Ruth returned to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “How did things turn out for you, my daughter?” Ruth told her about all the man had done for her.

So Boaz married Ruth and had sexual relations with her. The Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son.

He will encourage you and provide for you when you are old, for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has given him birth. She is better to you than seven sons!”

But Hannah replied, “That’s not the way it is, my lord! I am under a great deal of stress. I have drunk neither wine nor beer. Rather, I have poured out my soul to the Lord.

Don’t consider your servant a wicked woman, for until now I have spoken from my deep pain and anguish.”

Eli replied, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request that you have asked of him.”

They got up early the next morning and after worshiping the Lord, they returned to their home at Ramah. Elkanah had marital relations with his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her.

After some time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, thinking, “I asked the Lord for him.

but Hannah did not go up with them. Instead she told her husband, “Once the boy is weaned, I will bring him and appear before the Lord, and he will remain there from then on.”

His mother used to make him a small robe and bring it up to him at regular intervals when she would go up with her husband to make the annual sacrifice.