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A Shared World in the First Verses of Ruth
Shared information is in red, unshared in blue, neutral text is in ordinary type:
1 In the days when the judges ruled there was
a famine in the land,
and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went
to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and
his wife and his
two sons.
2 The name of the man was
Elim'elech and the name of his wife Na'omi,
and the names of his two sons were
Mahlon and Chil'ion; they were Eph'rathites
from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of
Moab and remained there.
3 But Elim'elech, the husband of Na'omi,
died, and she was left with
her two sons. 4 These took
Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and
the name of the other Ruth. They lived
there about ten years;
5 and both Mahlon and Chil'ion died,
so that the woman was bereft of her two sons and her
husband.