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

16 But Ruth replied:

Don’t plead with me to abandon you

or to return and not follow 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.

17 Where you die, I will die,

and there I will be buried.

May the Lord punish me,k

and do so severely,

if anything but death separates you and me.

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