1. At that time Israel did not have a king.There was a Levite who lived in the faraway mountains of Ephraim. He had taken a slave woman from the city of Bethlehem in the land of Judah to live with him,
2. but she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah and stayed there for four months.
3. Then her husband went to ask her to come back to him, taking with him his servant and two donkeys. When the Levite came to her father’s house, she invited him to come in, and her father was happy to see him.
4. The father-in-law, the young woman’s father, asked him to stay. So he stayed for three days and ate, drank, and slept there.
5. On the fourth day they got up early in the morning. The Levite was getting ready to leave, but the woman’s father said to his son-in-law, “Refresh yourself by eating something. Then go.”
6. So the two men sat down to eat and drink together. After that, the father said to him, “Please stay tonight. Relax and enjoy yourself.”
7. When the man got up to go, his father-in-law asked him to stay. So he stayed again that night.