Ruth 1:15–22

¹⁵So Naomi said to her, “Ruth, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god.^c Go back home with her.”

¹⁶But Ruth answered, “Don’t ask me to leave you! Let me go with you. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. ¹⁷Wherever you die, I will die, and that is where I will be buried. May the Lord’s worst punishment come upon me if I let anything but death^d separate me from you!”

¹⁸When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.

¹⁹They went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived, the whole town got excited, and the women there exclaimed, “Is this really Naomi?”

²⁰“Don’t call me Naomi,” she answered; “call me Marah,^e because Almighty God has made my life bitter. ²¹When I left here, I had plenty, but the Lord has brought me back without a thing. Why call me Naomi when the Lord Almighty has condemned me and sent me trouble?”

²²This, then, was how Naomi came back from Moab with Ruth, her Moabite daughter-in-law. The barley harvest was just beginning when they arrived in Bethlehem.