Ruth
Chapter 1
1 During the time when judges led, a famine struck the land. A man from Bethlehem in Judah moved to live in Moab with his wife and two sons.
2 The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife was Naomi, and their two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, from Bethlehem in Judah. They went to live in the land of Moab and stayed there.
3 Naomi’s husband Elimelech died; she was left with her two sons.
4 They married women from Moab; one was named Orpah and the other Ruth, and they lived there for about ten years.
5 Mahlon and Chilion also died; the woman lost her two sons and her husband.
6 Then she got up with her daughters-in-law to go back from Moab because she heard God had given food to his people there.
7 So she left the place where she was, with her two daughters-in-law, and they traveled back to the land of Judah.
8 Naomi told her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ homes. May God be kind to you, just as you were to the ones who have died, and to me.”
9 May God help you find peace in your husbands’ homes. Then she kissed them, and they all cried aloud.
10 They told her, “We will definitely go back with you to your people.”
11 Naomi said, “Go back, my daughters. Why come with me? Do I have more sons in my belly to become your husbands?”
12 Come back, my daughters, go on; because I am too old to get a husband. Even if I said I have hope, and even if I got a husband tonight, and then had sons;
13 Would you wait for them until they grow up? Would you remain single for them? No, my daughters; it makes me very sad for you that God has turned against me.
14 They cried out loud again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye; but Ruth stayed close to her.
15 She said, “Look, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and her gods; you should go back after your sister-in-law.”
16 Ruth said, “Don’t ask me to leave you or stop following you. Where you go, I will go; where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”
17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May God do the same to me, and even more, if anything but death separates you and me.
18 When she saw that she was determined to go with her, then she stopped talking to her.
19 So they both went until they reached Bethlehem. When they got there, the whole town was stirred because of them, and they asked, “Is this Naomi?”
20 She told them, “Don’t call me Naomi, call me Mara, because God has made my life very bitter.”
21 I left with everything and God brought me back with nothing: why do you still call me Naomi when God has shown disapproval of me, and the Almighty has caused me suffering?
22 Naomi went back, and with her went Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who had come from the country of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the start of the barley harvest.