Ruth 1:15–22

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

¹⁶But 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.

¹⁷Where 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.

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

¹⁹The two of them traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was excited about their arrival^Al and the local women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

²⁰“Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara,”^B she answered, “for the Almighty^m has made me very bitter.^{n 21}I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.^o Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has opposed^C me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”

²²So Naomi came back from the territory of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.^p