However, there is an annual festival to the Lord in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel ¹  (east of the main road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem) and south of Lebonah.”

Jeroboam inaugurated a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, ¹  like the festival celebrated in Judah. ²  On the altar in Bethel he offered sacrifices to the calves he had made. ³  In Bethel he also appointed priests for the high places he had made.

Now there was an old prophet living in Bethel. ¹  When his sons came home, they told their father ²  everything the prophet ³  had done in Bethel that day and all the words he had spoken to the king. ⁴ 

Elijah told Elisha, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel.” ¹  But Elisha said, “As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.

I am the God of Bethel, ¹  where you anointed ²  the sacred stone and made a vow to me. ³  Now leave this land immediately ⁴  and return to your native land.’”

Then God said to Jacob, “Go up at once ¹  to Bethel ²  and live there. Make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” ³ 

Let us go up at once ¹  to Bethel. Then I will make ²  an altar there to God, who responded to me in my time of distress ³  and has been with me wherever I went.” ⁴ 

He built an altar there and named the place El Bethel ¹  because there God had revealed himself ²  to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

They traveled on from Bethel, and when Ephrath was still some distance away, ¹  Rachel went into labor ²  – and her labor was hard.

Joshua sent them away and they went to their hiding place ¹  west of Ai, between Bethel ²  and Ai. ³  Joshua spent that night with the army. ⁴ 

The land allotted to Joseph’s descendants extended from the Jordan at Jericho ¹  to the waters of Jericho to the east, through the desert and on up from Jericho into the hill country of Bethel. ² 

She would sit ¹  under the Date Palm Tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel ²  in the Ephraimite hill country. The Israelites would come up to her to have their disputes settled. ³ 

This man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah to find another place to live. He came to the Ephraimite hill country and made his way to Micah’s house. ¹ 

Micah said to him, “Where do you come from?” He replied, “I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. I am looking for a new place to live.” ¹ 

In those days Israel had no king. There was a Levite ¹  living temporarily in the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. He acquired a concubine ²  from Bethlehem ³  in Judah.

However, she ¹  got angry at him ²  and went home ³  to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah. When she had been there four months,

The Israelites went up to Bethel ¹  and asked God, ²  “Who should lead the charge against the Benjaminites?” ³  The Lord said, “Judah should lead.”

So all the Israelites, the whole army, ¹  went up to ²  Bethel. ³  They wept and sat there before the Lord; they did not eat anything ⁴  that day until evening. They offered up burnt sacrifices and tokens of peace ⁵  to the Lord.

So Naomi returned, accompanied by her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth, who came back with her from the region of Moab. ¹  (Now they ²  arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.) ³ 

Samuel did what the Lord told him. ¹  When he arrived in Bethlehem, ²  the elders of the city were afraid to meet him. They ³  said, “Do you come in peace?”