15. So Naomi said to her, “Ruth, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Go back home with her.”
16. But 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.
17. Wherever 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 separate me from you!”
18. When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.
19. They 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, because Almighty God has made my life bitter.
21. When 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?”
22. This, 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.