Ruth 1:15–22

¹⁵And she said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to ^pher people and to her gods; ^qreturn after your sister-in-law.”

¹⁶But Ruth said:

^r“Entreat ⁵me not to leave you,

Or to turn back from following after you;

For wherever you go, I will go;

And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;

^sYour people shall be my people,

And your God, my God.

¹⁷Where you die, I will die,

And there will I be buried.

^tThe Lord do so to me, and more also,

If anything but death parts you and me.”

^18uWhen she saw that she ⁶was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her.

¹⁹Now the two of them went until they came to Bethlehem. And it happened, when they had come to Bethlehem, that ^vall the city was excited because of them; and the women said, ^w“Is this Naomi?”

²⁰But she said to them, “Do not call me ⁷Naomi; call me ⁸Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ²¹I went out full, ^xand the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and ⁹the Almighty has afflicted me?”

²²So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. Now they came to Bethlehem ^yat the beginning of barley harvest.