Ruth 1:8-18 ▼

8 And 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;

9 YHWH 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.

10 And they say to her, “Surely with you we go back to your people.”

11 And 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?

12 Turn 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:

13 do 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.”

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

15 And she says, “Behold, your sister-in-law has turned back to her people, and to her god, turn back after your sister-in-law.”

16 And 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.

17 Where 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.”

18 And she sees that she is strengthening herself to go with her, and she ceases to speak to her;