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The Threshing-Floor at Midnight
On the night the barley is winnowed, Naomi sends Ruth down to the threshing-floor with a plan that could cost her everything — and a man wakes at midnight to find a woman lying at his feet.
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Milk and Iron
Sisera, the routed general of King Jabin, flees on foot up the slope above the Kishon and ducks into the only tent that will take him in. A Kenite woman gives him milk, covers him with a mantle, and waits for sleep.
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The Angel in the Path
Balaam rode out toward Moab to curse a people, and his old donkey turned aside three times from a road that looked empty. When at last she spoke, he answered her before he saw what she had seen.
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The Bramble King
Jotham, the only surviving son of Gideon, climbs Mount Gerizim above Shechem and shouts a parable of trees down at the men who have crowned his brother king.
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The Vineyard at Jezreel
Ahab covets a vineyard at Jezreel; Naboth refuses; Jezebel writes letters in the king's name. When the king at last walks among the vines he wanted, Elijah is waiting at the head of the row.
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The Woman at Endor
A king in disguise climbs by night to a door he himself has forbidden. The dead are summoned in lamplight, and what rises is the one thing he came for and could not bear to hear.
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A Bowshot Away
Cast out at dawn with three loaves and a skin of water, Hagar walks her son into the wilderness of Beersheba — and when the water runs out, she sets him under a shrub and walks away as far as an arrow flies.
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Rizpah on the Rock
Through three years of famine, a king finds an old grievance to settle. A concubine of the dead king carries a sackcloth up the rock at Gibeah and refuses to come down.
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The Ford at Jabbok
On the night before he meets the brother he cheated, Jacob sends his family across the Jabbok and stays behind alone. In the dark, a stranger lays hold of him, and they wrestle until the river fills with light.
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The Mountain
An old man, a boy, fire and wood, and a three-day climb toward a mountain neither of them will ever forget.
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The Two Mothers
Two poor women, one living child, one sword, and a young king who staked his throne on a single question.
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The Voice in the Stillness
Fleeing Jezebel's death warrant into the wilderness, Elijah collapses under a broom tree and begs to die — until God meets him not in wind or earthquake or fire, but in the sound of sheer silence.
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The Poor Man's Lamb
Nathan the prophet confronts King David with a story of a stolen lamb — and a judgment that turns on its teller.