¹ Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against ²  Moses because of the Cushite ³  woman he had married ⁴  (for he had married an Ethiopian woman).

The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur. He was a leader ¹  over the people of a clan of Midian. ² 

You will say to them, ‘This is the offering made by fire which you must offer to the Lord: two unblemished lambs one year old each day for a continual ¹  burnt offering.

But the woman hid the two men ¹  and replied, “Yes, these men were clients of mine, ²  but I didn’t know where they came from.

The Lord’s angelic ¹  messenger appeared to the woman and said to her, “You ²  are infertile and childless, ³  but you will conceive and have a son.

God answered Manoah’s prayer. ¹  God’s angelic messenger visited ²  the woman again while she was sitting in the field. But her husband Manoah was not with her.

The woman ran at once and told her husband, ¹  “Come quickly, ²  the man who visited ³  me the other day has appeared to me!”

So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met ¹  the man, he said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” ²  He said, “Yes.” ³ 

The woman arrived back at daybreak and was sprawled out on the doorstep of the house where her master ¹  was staying until it became light. ² 

When her master ¹  got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went outside to start on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, sprawled out on the doorstep of the house with her hands on the threshold.

The Levite, ¹  the husband of the murdered woman, spoke up, “I and my concubine stopped in ²  Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin ³  to spend the night.

So she slept beside him ¹  until morning. She woke up while it was still dark. ²  Boaz thought, ³  “No one must know that a woman visited the threshing floor.” ⁴ 

She said, “May I, your servant, find favor in your sight.” So the woman went her way and got something to eat. ¹  Her face no longer looked sad.

She said, “Just as surely as you are alive, my lord, I am the woman who previously stood here with you in order to pray to the Lord.

The king said to her, “Don’t be afraid! What have you seen?” The woman replied to Saul, “I have seen one like a god ¹  coming up from the ground!”

But he refused, saying, “I won’t eat!” Both his servants and the woman urged ¹  him to eat, so he gave in. ²  He got up from the ground and sat down on the bed.

So the Tekoan woman went ¹  to the king. She bowed down with her face to the ground in deference to him and said, “Please help me, ²  O king!”

The Tekoan woman said to the king, “My lord the king, let any blame fall on me and on the house of my father. But let the king and his throne be innocent!”

The woman said, “Why have you devised something like this against God’s people? When the king speaks in this fashion, he makes himself guilty, for the king has not brought back the one he has banished.

His wife then took the covering and spread it over the top of the well and scattered some grain over it. No one was aware of what she had done.