Ruth 1:1-22
1 And in the time when the judges judged there was a famine in the country, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah went to live as an immigrant in Moab, he and his wife and his two sons;
2 the man’s name was Elimelec and his wife’s name was Naʽomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kiljon—Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. And they went into Moab and were there;
3 and Naʽomi’s husband Elimelec died, and she and her two sons remained,
4 and she married them to Moabite wives, one named ʽOrpah and the other named Ruth. And they lived there about ten years,
5 and Mahlon and Kiljon died too, both of them, and the woman remained, surviving her two children and her husband.
6 * And she broke up her home, she and her daughters-in-law, and was going back out of Moab, because she had heard in Moab that Jehovah had looked after his people, giving them bread;
7 and she went out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and went along the road to go back to Judah.
8 And Naʽomi said to her two daughters-in-law “Come on, go back to your mothers’ homes; may Jehovah be kind to you, as you have been to those who are dead and to me.
9 May Jehovah grant that each of you may find rest in a husband’s home”; and she kissed them. And they raised their voices and wept,
10 and said to her “But we are going back with you to your people.”
11 But Naʽomi said “Go back, daughters; why should you go with me? do I still have sons in my body who would be husbands for you?
12 Go back, daughters, go, because I am too old to marry. If I said ‘I have hopes’ and actually married tonight, or actually bore sons,
13 would you on that account have patience till they should grow up? would you on that account live single without marrying? No, daughters, though I suffer bitterly because of you; for Jehovah’s hand has gone out against me.”
14 And they raised their voices and wept again, and ʽOrpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth stayed by her.
15 And she said “There, your sister-in-law has gone back to her own people and her own god; go back, follow your sister-in-law.”
16 But Ruth said “Do not pray me to leave you, to go back from following you, because where you go I am going and where you stop for the night I will stop. Your people is my people and your god is my god.
17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. Jehovah do so to me, and more, but it shall be death that separates you and me from each other.”
18 And she saw she was set on going with her, and left off talking to her.
19 And the two of them went till they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem all the city was in a commotion over them, and they said “Is this Naʽomi?”
20 * And she said to them “Do not call me Naʽomi, call me Mara, because Shaddai has made things very bitter for me.
21 I went full and Jehovah brought me back empty; why do you call me Naʽomi when Jehovah has indicted me and Shaddai has brought evil on me?”
22 * And Naʽomi came back, and with her Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who had followed her back from Moab, and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
Footnotes
^ 1:6 Lit. she stood up, she and
^ 1:20 Naʽomi means My Comfort; Mara means Bitter
^ 1:22 Lit. who had come back from
