Ruth 1

Naomi and Ruth come back to Bethlehem

¹In the days when the judges judged, a famine struck the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah set out with his wife and his two sons to live for a while as an outsider in the country of Moab.^{a 2}The man was called Elimelech, his wife was called Naomi, and his two sons were called Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They came into the country of Moab and settled there. ³Then Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, leaving her with her two sons. ⁴The sons married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. They lived there for about ten years. ⁵Then both Mahlon and Chilion died as well, and the woman was left alone, without her two sons and without her husband. ⁶Then she got ready with her daughters-in-law to go back from the country of Moab, because she had heard there that the LORD had come to the help of his people and given them food. ⁷She set out from the place where she had been living, with her two daughters-in-law, and they took the road back to the land of Judah. ⁸But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go home, both of you, each to the house of your mother. May the LORD show you faithful love, just as you showed it to the men who died and to me. ⁹May the LORD grant that each of you finds rest in the home of a new husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. ¹⁰They said to her, “No! We will go back with you to your people.” ¹¹But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters. Why go with me? Do I still have sons inside my womb who could become your husbands? ¹²Go back, my daughters, go on your way, for I am too old to marry again. Even if I thought there was still hope for me, even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons, ¹³would you then wait until they had grown up? Would you then keep yourselves from marrying? No, my daughters! My lot is far more bitter than yours, for the hand of the LORD has turned against me.”^{b 14}Again they wept aloud. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth held on to her. ¹⁵Naomi said, “See, your sister-in-law has turned back, home to her people and her gods. Follow your sister-in-law back.” ¹⁶But Ruth said, “Stop pressing me to leave you and turn away from following you. Wherever you travel, I will travel with you; wherever you stop for the night, I will stop as well. Your people are now my people, and your God is now my God. ¹⁷The place where you die is where I will die and be buried. May the LORD deal with me ever so severely if anything except death comes between us.”^{c 18}When Naomi saw that Ruth was set on going with her, she said no more to her. ¹⁹So the two of them traveled on until they reached Bethlehem. When they arrived, the whole town was in an uproar over them, and the women said, “Can this be Naomi?” ²⁰She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has made my life very bitter.^{d 21}I went away full, but the LORD has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has brought disaster on me.”^{e 22}So Naomi came back, and with her came her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabite, who had come back from the country of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.