1And it comes to pass, in [the] days [when] the ones judging judge, that there is a famine in the land, and there goes a man from Beth-Lehem-Judah to sojourn in the fields of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. 2And the name of the man [is] Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephraimites from Beth-Lehem-Judah; and they come into the fields of Moab, and are there. 3And Elimelech husband of Naomi dies, and she is left, she and her two sons; 4and they take to them wives, Moabitesses: the name of the first [is] Orpah, and the name of the second Ruth; and they dwell there about ten years. 5And they die also, both of them—Mahlon and Chilion—and the woman is left of her two children and of her husband.

6And she rises, she and her daughters-in-law, and turns back from the fields of Moab, for she has heard in the fields of Moab that God has looked after His people—to give to them bread. 7And she goes out from the place where she has been, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they go in the way to return to the land of Judah. 8And Naomi says to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return, each to the house of her mother; YHWH does with you kindness as you have done with the dead, and with me; 9YHWH grants to you, and you find rest each in the house of her husband”; and she kisses them, and they lift up their voice and weep. 10And they say to her, “Surely with you we go back to your people.” 11And Naomi says, “Turn back, my daughters; why do you go with me? Are there yet to me sons in my bowels that they have been to you for husbands? 12Turn back, my daughters, go, for I am too aged to be to a husband; though I had said, There is for me hope, also, I have been tonight to a husband, and also I have borne sons: 13do you wait for them until they grow up? Do you shut yourselves up for them, not to be to a husband? No, my daughters, for more bitter to me than to you, for the hand of YHWH has gone out against me.”

14And they lift up their voice, and weep again, and Orpah kisses her mother-in-law, and Ruth has cleaved to her.

15And she says, “Behold, your sister-in-law has turned back to her people, and to her god, turn back after your sister-in-law.” 16And Ruth says, “Do not urge me to leave you—to turn back from after you; for to where you go I go, and where you lodge I lodge; your people [is] my people, and your God my God. 17Where you die I die, and there I am buried; thus does YHWH to me, and thus He adds—for death itself parts between me and you.” 18And she sees that she is strengthening herself to go with her, and she ceases to speak to her;

19and the two of them go until their coming to Beth-Lehem; and it comes to pass at their coming to Beth-Lehem, that all the city is moved at them, and they say, “Is this Naomi?” 20And she says to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly to me, 21I went out full, and YHWH has brought me back empty, why do you call me Naomi, and YHWH has testified against me, and the Almighty has done evil to me?”

22And Naomi turns back, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, who has turned back from the fields of Moab, and they have come to Beth-Lehem at the commencement of barley-harvest.