1 In those days there was no king in Israel; there was a man, a Levite, who dwelled as a foreigner in the remote areas of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.
2 But his concubine felt repugnance toward him, and she left him and went to her father’s house, to Bethlehem in Judah; she was there some four months.
3 So her husband set out, and he went after her to speak tenderly to her, to bring her back. He took with him his servant and a pair of donkeys. And she brought him to her father’s house, and the father of the young woman saw him and was glad to meet him.
4 His father-in-law, the young woman’s father, urged him to stay with him three days; and they ate and drank, and they spent the night there.
5 On the fourth day, they rose early in the morning, and he prepared to go, but the father of the young woman said to his son-in-law, “Refresh yourself with a bit of food, and afterward you may go.”
6 So the two of them sat and ate and drank together, and the father of the young woman said to the man, “Please, agree to spend the night and enjoy yourself.”