Ruth 1:14–22

¹⁴Again they wept aloud, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

¹⁵“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; follow her back home.”

¹⁶But Ruth replied:

“Do not urge me to leave you

or to turn from following you.

For wherever you go, I will go,

and wherever you live, I will live;

your people will be my people,

and your God will be my God.

¹⁷Where you die, I will die,

and there I will be buried.

May the LORD punish me,

and ever so severely,

if anything but death

separates you and me.”

¹⁸When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her.

¹⁹So Naomi and Ruth traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women of the town exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

²⁰“Do not call me Naomi,^b” she replied. “Call me Mara,^c because the Almighty^d has dealt quite bitterly with me. ²¹I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? After all, the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me.”

²²So Naomi returned from the land of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess. And they arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.