1. Now in those days, there was no king in Israel. There was a certain Levite dwelling in a remote part of the hill country of Ephraim, who got himself a concubine out of Bethlehem in Judah.
2. But his concubine played the harlot against him, and went away from him to her father’s house to Bethlehem in Judah, and was there for a period of four months.
3. Then her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her to bring her back. He had his servant and a pair of donkeys with him. So she brought him into her father’s house, and when the father of the young woman saw him, he was glad to meet him.
4. His father-in-law, the young woman’s father, kept him staying with him three days, eating, drinking and lodging there.
5. Now on the fourth day they woke up early in the morning, and he rose up to depart, but the young woman’s father said to his son-in-law, “Strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread, and afterward you may go.”