- In the days when the judges ruled, there
was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with
his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.
- The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's
name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were
Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
- Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and
she was left with her two sons.
- They married Moabite women, one named Orpah
and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years,
- both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi
was left without her two sons and her husband.
- When she heard in Moab that the LORD had
come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her
daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there.
- With her two daughters-in-law she left
the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take
them back to the land of Judah.
- Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law,
"Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the LORD show kindness
to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me.
- May the LORD grant that each of you will
find rest in the home of another husband." Then she kissed them and
they wept aloud
- and said to her, "We will go back
with you to your people."
- But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters.
Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could
become your husbands ?
- Return home, my daughters; I am too old
to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me
-- even if I had a husband tonight and
then gave birth to sons --
- would you wait until they grew up? Would
you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me
than for you, because the LORD'S hand has gone out against me
!"
- At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed
her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.
- "Look," said Naomi, "your
sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her."
- But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to
leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you
stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.
- Where you die I will die, and there I will
be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything
but death separates you and me."
- When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined
to go with her, she stopped urging her.
- So the two women went on until they came
to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred
because of them, and the women exclaimed, "Can this be Naomi
?"
- "Don't call me Naomi," she told
them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.
- I went away full, but the LORD has brought
me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty
has brought misfortune upon me."
- So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied
by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the
barley harvest was beginning.
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