Category: Scripture

When the child [Samuel] was weaned, Hannah took him to the Tabernacle in Shiloh. They brought along a three-year-old bull for the sacrifice and a basket of flour and some wine. After sacrificing the bull, they brought the boy to Eli. “Sir, do you remember me?” Hannah asked. “I am the woman who stood here several years ago praying to the Lord to give me this boy, and He has granted my request. Now I am giving him to the Lord, and he will belong to the Lord his whole life.” And they worshiped the Lord there. (vv. 24-28, NLT)

Once after a sacrificial meal at Shiloh, Hannah got up and wen to pray. Eli the priest was sitting at his customary place besides the entrance to the Tabernacle. Hannah was in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the Lord. And she made this vow: ” O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to You. He will be Yours for his entire lifetime, as as a sign that he has been dedicated to the Lord, his hair will never be cut.”

As she was praying to the Lord, Eli watch her. Seeing her lips moving but hearing no sound, he though she had been drinking. “Must you come here drunk?” he demanded.

“Throw away your wine!”

“Oh no sir!” she replied. “I haven’t been drinking wine or any thing stronger. But I am very discouraged, and I was pouring out my heart to the Lord. Don’t think I am a wicked woman! For I have been praying out of great anguish and sorrow.”

“In that case,” Eli said, “go in peace! May the God of Israel grant the request you have asked of Him.”

“Oh, thank you, sir!” she exclaimed. Then she went back home and began to eat again, and she was no longer sad. (vv. 9-18, NLT)

Then the women of the town said to Naomi, “Praise the Lord who now has provided a redeemer for your family! May this child be famous in Israel. May he restore your youth and care for you in your old age. For he is the son of your daugher-in-law who loves you and has been better to you than seven sons!”

Naomi took the baby and cuddled him to her breast. And she cared for him as if he were her own. The neighbor women said, “Now at last Naomi has a son again!” And they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David. (vv. 14-17, NLT)

“The Lord bless you, my daughter!” Boaz exclaimed. “You are showing even more family loyalty now than you did before, for you have not gone after the youngest man, whether rich or poor. No don’t worry about a thing, my daughter. I will do what is necessary, for everyone in town knows you are a virtuous woman. But while it’s true that I am one of the family redeemers, there is another man who is more closely related to you than I am. Stay here tonight, and in the morning, I will talk to him. If he is willing to redeem you, very well. Let. him marry you. But if he is not willing, then as surely as the Lord lives, I will redeem you myself! Now lie down here until morning.” (vv. 10-13, NLT)

At mealtime Boaz called to her “Come over her, and help yourself to some food. You can dip your bread in the sour wine.” So she sat with his harvesters and Boaz gave her some roasted grain to eat. She ate all she wanted and still had some left over. (v. 14, NLT)

So Ruth gathered barley there all day, and when she beat out the grain that evening, if filled the entire basket. She carried it back into town and showed it to her mother-in-law. Ruth also gave her the roasted grain that was left over from her meal.

“Where did you gather all this grain today?” Naomi asked. “Where did you work? May the Lord bless the one who help you!”

So Ruth told her mother-in-law about the man in whose field she had worked. She said, “The man I worked with today is named Boaz.”

May the Lord bless him!” Naomi told her daughter-in-law. “He is showing is kindness to us as well as your dead husband. THat man is one of our closest relative, on of our family redeemers.”

Then Ruth sai “What’s more, Boaz even told me to come back and stay with his harvesters until the entire harvest is completed.” (vv. 17-21, NLT)

Now there was a wealth and influential man in Bethlehem named Boaz, who was a relative of Naomi’s husband Elimelech.

One day Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi,”Let me go out into the harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let me do it.”

Naomi replied, “All right, my daughter, go ahead.” So Ruth went out to gather grain behind the harvesters. As it happened, she found herself working at a field that belonged to Boaz, the relative if her father-in-law, Elimelech.

While she was there, Boaz arrived from Betlehem and greeted the harvesters. “The Lord be with you!” he said.

“The Lord bless you!” the harvesters replied.

Then Boaz asked his foreman, “Who is the young woman over there? Who does she belong to?”

And the foreman replied, “Sh is the young woman from Moab who came back with Naomi. She asked me this morning if she could gather grain behind the harvesters. She has been hard at work ever since, except for a few minutes’ rest in the shelter.

Boaz went over and said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Stay right here with us when you gather grain, don’t go to any other fields. Stay right behind the young women working in my field. See which part of the field they are harvesting, and then follow them. I have warned the young men not to treat you roughly. And when you are thirsty, help yourself to the water they have drawn from the well. (vv. 1-9, NLT)

In the days when the judges rules Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the county of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him. The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons were Mahlon and lilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in the land of Judah. And when they reached Moab, they settled there.

Then Emilelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. The two sons married Moabite women. One married a woman named Orpah, and the other woman named Ruth. But about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion died. This left Naomi alone, without her sons or her husband. (vv. 1-5. NLT)

Then Delilah pouted “How can you tell me, ‘I love you,’ when you don’t share your secrets with me? You. have made fun of me three times now and you still haven’t told me what makes you so strong!” She tormented him with her nagging day after day until he was sick to death with it.

Finally, Samson shared his secret with her. “My hair has never been cut,” he confessed, ‘for I was dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. If my head is shaved, my strength will leave me, and I would become as weak as anyone else.”

Delilah realized that he had finally told her the truth, so she sent for the Philistine rulers, “Come back one more time,” she said, ”for he has finally told me his secret.” So the Philistine rulers returned with the money in their hands. Delilah lulled Samson to sleep with his head in her lap, and then she called a man to shave off the seven locks of his hear. In this way, she began to bring him down, and his strength left him.

Then she cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!”

When he woke up, he thought, “I will do as before and shake myself free.” But he didn’t realize the Lord had left him.

So the Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. They took him to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze chains and forced to grind grain in the prison.

But before long, his hair began to grow back. (vv. 15-22, NLT)

“Because you did this,” Samson vowed, “I won’t rest until I take my revenge on you!” So he attacked the Philistines with great fury and killed many of them. Then he went to live in a cave in the rock of Elam.”

The Philistines retaliated by setting up a camp in Judah. and spreading out near the town of Lehi. The men of Judah asked the Philistines, “Why are you attacking us?”

The Philistines replied, “We’ve come to pay him back for what he did to us.”

So 3,000 men of Judah went down to get Samson out of the cave in Edom. They said to Samson, “Don’t you realize the Philistines rule over us? What are you doing to us?”

But Samson replied, “I only did to them what they did to me.”

But the men of Judah told him, “We have to tie you up an hand you over to the Philistines.”

“All right.” Samson said, “But promise that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

“We will only tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines,” they replied. “We won’t kill you.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him up fro the rock.

As Samson arrived at Lehi, the Philistines came shouting in triumph. But the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully over Samson, and he snapped the ropes on his arms as if they were burnt strands of flax, and they fell from his wrists. Then he found the jawbone of a recently killed donkey. He picked it up, an killed 1,000 Philistines with it. (vv. 7-16, NLT)

Samson was now very thirsty, and he cried out to the Lord, “You have accomplished this great victory by the strength of Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of these pagans?” So God caused water to gush out of a hollow in the ground at Lehi, and Samson was revived as he drank. Then he named that place “The Spring of the One who Cried Out,” and it is still in Lehi to this day.

Samson judged Israel for twenty years during the period when the Philistines dominated the land. (vv. 17-20, NLT)

As his father was making final arrangements for marriage, Samson threw a party at Timnah, as was the custom for elite youn men. When the bride’s parents was him, they selected thirty young men from the town to be his companions.

Samson said to them, “Let me tell you a riddle. If you solve my riddle during these seven days of celebration, I will give you thirty fine linen robes and thirty sets of festive clothing.”

“All right,” they said, “let’s hear your riddle.”

So he said: “Our of the one who eats came something to eat; our of the strong came something sweet.”

Three days later they were still trying to figure it out. On the the fourth day, they said to Sampson’s wife, “Entire your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn down your father’s house with you in it. Did you invite us to the party just to make us poor?”

So Samson’s wife cam to him in tears and said, “You don’t love me; you hate me! Your have given my people a riddle, but you haven’t told me the answer.”

I haven’t given the answer to my father or mother, “he replied. “Why should I tell you?” So she cried whenever she was with him and kept it up for the rest of the celebration. At last on the seventh day he told her the answer because she was tormenting him with her nagging. Then she explained the riddle to the you men.

Before sunset of the seventh day, the men in town came to Samson with their answer: “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?”

Samson replied, “If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have solved my riddle!”

Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him. He went down to the town of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their belongings, and gave their clothing to the men who had solved his riddle. But Samson was furious about what had happened, and he went back home to live with his father and mother. So his wife was given in mariage to Samson’s best man at the wedding. (vv. 10-2, NLT)