1. In those days Israel had no king. There was a Levite living temporarily in the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. He acquired a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.
2. However, she got angry at him and went home to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah. When she had been there four months,
3. her husband came after her, hoping he could convince her to return. He brought with him his servant and a pair of donkeys. When she brought him into her father’s house and the girl’s father saw him, he greeted him warmly.
4. His father-in-law, the girl’s father, persuaded him to stay with him for three days, and they ate and drank together, and spent the night there.