The high places of the “House ¹  of Wickedness” ²  will be destroyed; it is the place where Israel sins. Thorns and thistles will grow up over its altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

The Levite ¹  said to him, “We are traveling from Bethlehem ²  in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That’s where I’m from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I’m heading home. ³  But no one has invited me into their home.

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.

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.

(Deborah, ¹  Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under the oak below Bethel; thus it was named ²  Oak of Weeping.) ³ 

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 

He took five thousand men and set an ambush west of the city between Bethel ¹  and Ai.

No men were left in Ai or Bethel; ¹  they all went out after Israel. ²  They left the city wide open and chased Israel.

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 

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,

So the people came to Bethel ¹  and sat there before God until evening, weeping loudly and uncontrollably. ² 

During the time of the judges ¹  there was a famine in the land of Judah. ²  So a man from Bethlehem ³  in Judah went to live as a resident foreigner ⁴  in the region of Moab, along with his wife and two sons. ⁵ 

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