Proverbs 2:17

He said, “Who are you?” She answered, “I am Ruth your servant. Therefore spread the corner of your garment over your servant; for you are a near kinsman.”

Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity, for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.

In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, to mourning, to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth;

For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband.

When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out in the army, neither shall he be assigned any business. He shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer his wife whom he has taken.

Since you have been precious and honored in my sight, and I have loved you, therefore I will give people in your place, and nations instead of your life.

For Yahweh has called you as a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even a wife of youth, when she is cast off,” says your God.

“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your weddings; how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.

Will you not from this time cry to me, ‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth?’

“But I said, ‘How I desire to put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations!’ and I said, ‘You shall call me “My Father”, and shall not turn away from following me.’

I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.

But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

If you afflict my daughters, or if you take wives in addition to my daughters, no man is with us; behold, God is witness between me and you.”

A man shall not take his father’s wife, and shall not uncover his father’s skirt.

He said to them, “Yahweh is witness against you, and his anointed is witness today, that you have not found anything in my hand.” They said, “He is witness.”

For Yahweh will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased Yahweh to make you a people for himself.

God, you have taught me from my youth. Until now, I have declared your wondrous works.

Let your spring be blessed. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.

But now Yahweh who created you, Jacob, and he who formed you, Israel, says: “Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine.

For your Maker is your husband; Yahweh of Armies is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He will be called the God of the whole earth.

Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.

They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn.

“ ‘ “When I passed by you, and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you, ‘Though you are in your blood, live!’ Yes, I said to you, ‘Though you are in your blood, live!’

“ ‘ “Now when I passed by you, and looked at you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you,” says the Lord Yahweh, “and you became mine.

Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant.

Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

You have wearied Yahweh with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in Yahweh’s sight, and he delights in them;’ or ‘Where is the God of justice?’

What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

Now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you into Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, will be mine.

Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” The young woman went and called the child’s mother.

Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”

For Yahweh your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them.

Nevertheless Yahweh your God wouldn’t listen to Balaam, but Yahweh your God turned the curse into a blessing to you, because Yahweh your God loved you.

The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Yahweh will be witness between us. Surely we will do what you say.”

Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, I have purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his place. You are witnesses today.”

David took more wives at Jerusalem, and David became the father of more sons and daughters.

For this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even to death.

When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them.

For you are my hope, Lord Yahweh, my confidence from my youth.

I have relied on you from the womb. You are he who took me out of my mother’s womb. I will always praise you.

How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.

to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young man:

“So is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth, and says, ‘I have done nothing wrong.’

a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are like doves.

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. You have ravished my heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck.

My sister, my bride, is a locked up garden; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.

a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, flowing streams from Lebanon.

It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a wearing of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers.

who tell wood, ‘You are my father,’ and a stone, ‘You have given birth to me,’ for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise, and save us!’

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed. They couldn’t blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. In the time of their visitation they will be cast down, says Yahweh.

because they have done foolish things in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and have spoken words in my name falsely, which I didn’t command them. I am he who knows, and am witness,” says Yahweh.

not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh.

Then they said to Jeremiah, “May Yahweh be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don’t do according to all the word with which Yahweh your God sends you to tell us.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep silence. They have cast up dust on their heads. They have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.

Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!

Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: “Wailing will be in all the wide ways; and they will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’ and they will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing.

Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’ ”

“I have loved you,” says Yahweh. Yet you say, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” says Yahweh, “Yet I loved Jacob;

Yet you say, ‘Why?’ Because Yahweh has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant.

Did he not make you one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In tithes and offerings.

“Your words have been stout against me,” says Yahweh. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against you?’

So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.”

He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. This, my joy, therefore is made full.

As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.”

for he says, “At an acceptable time I listened to you. In a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

And because you are children, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”

having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,

Even so husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance;

But we are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth,

not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them,” says the Lord.

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.