Ruth 1:9-22 ▼

9 May YHWH give to you?, and may you find rest, each woman in the house of her husband.” And she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice, and they wept.

10 And they said to her, “Surely we will return with you to your people.”

11 And Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters. Why would you? go with me? Are there still unto me sons in my bowels, that they may be your? husbands?

12 Turn back, my daughters, go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say there is to me hope, and if I should have tonight a husband and also should bear sons,

13 would you? wait for them until that they were grown? Would you? shut yourselves off from being wife to a man? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter for me from you?, for the hand of YHWH has gone out against me.”

14 And they lifted up their voice and they wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, and Ruth clung to her.

15 And she said, “Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”

16 And Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back from following after you. For to wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people are my people, and your God my God.

17 Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. And may YHWH do to me, and ever so more, if death does part between you and between me.”

18 And she saw that she was determined to go with her, and she stopped speaking to her.

19 And the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, as they came to Bethlehem, that all the city was stirred because of them, and the women said, “Is this Naomi?”

20 And she said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for Shaddai has dealt exceedingly bitterly with me.

21 I went out full, and YHWH has brought me back empty. Why do you? call me Naomi, since YHWH has testified against me, and Shaddai has afflicted me?”

22 And Naomi turned back, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, who turned back from the fields of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.