Jael came out to welcome Sisera. She said to him, “Stop and rest, ¹  my lord. Stop and rest with me. Don’t be afraid.” So Sisera ²  stopped to rest in her tent, and she put a blanket over him.

He said to her, “Give me a little water to drink, because I’m thirsty.” She opened a goatskin container of milk and gave him some milk to drink. Then she covered him up again.

When Jephthah came home to Mizpah, there was his daughter hurrying out ¹  to meet him, dancing to the rhythm of tambourines. ²  She was his only child; except for her he had no son or daughter.

When he saw her, he ripped his clothes and said, “Oh no! My daughter! You have completely ruined me! ¹  You have brought me disaster! ²  I made an oath to the Lord, and I cannot break it.” ³ 

She then said to her father, “Please grant me this one wish. ¹  For two months allow me to walk through the hills with my friends and mourn my virginity.” ² 

Some time later, when he went back to marry ¹  her, he turned aside to see the lion’s remains. He saw ²  a swarm of bees in the lion’s carcass, as well as some honey.

She cried on his shoulder ¹  until the party was almost over. ²  Finally, on the seventh day, he told her because she had nagged him so much. ³  Then she told the young men the solution to the riddle. ⁴ 

Samson said to her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh ¹  bowstrings ²  that have not been dried, I will become weak and be just like any other man.”

He said to her, “If they tie me tightly with brand new ropes that have never been used, ¹  I will become weak and be just like any other man.”

She made him go to sleep on her lap ¹  and then called a man in to shave off ²  the seven braids of his hair. ³  She made him vulnerable ⁴  and his strength left him.

I grabbed hold of my concubine and carved her up and sent the pieces ¹  throughout the territory occupied by Israel, ²  because they committed such an unthinkable atrocity ³  in Israel.

Ruth ¹  knelt before him with her forehead to the ground ²  and said to him, “Why are you so kind ³  and so attentive to me, ⁴  even though ⁵  I am a foreigner?” ⁶ 

Naomi then said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, “It is good, my daughter, that you should go out to work with his female servants. ¹  That way you will not be harmed, which could happen in another field.” ² 

So Ruth ¹  worked beside ²  Boaz’s female servants, gathering grain until the end of the barley harvest as well as the wheat harvest. ³  After that she stayed home with her mother-in-law. ⁴ 

Peninnah ¹  would behave this way year after year. Whenever Hannah ²  went up to the Lord’s house, Peninnah ³  would upset her so that she would weep and refuse to eat.

They got up early the next morning and after worshiping the Lord, they returned to their home at Ramah. Elkanah had marital relations with ¹  his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered ²  her.

but Hannah did not go up with them. ¹  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.”

Once she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, an ephah ¹  of flour, and a container ²  of wine. She brought him to the Lord’s house at Shiloh, even though he was young. ³ 

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.

As she was dying, the women who were there with her said, “Don’t be afraid! You have given birth to a son!” But she did not reply or pay any attention. ¹