10. “No,” they said to her. “We will go with you to your people.”
11. But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Am I able to have any more sons who could become your husbands?
12. Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons,
13. would you be willing to wait for them to grow up? Would you restrain yourselves from remarrying? No, my daughters, my life is much too bitter for you to share, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me.”
14. Again they wept loudly, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
15. Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law.”
16. But Ruth replied:Do not persuade me to leave youor go back 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 Yahweh punish me, 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 trying to persuade her.
19. The two of them traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was excited about their arrival and the local women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi? ”
20. “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara,” she answered, “for the Almighty has made me very bitter.
21. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has pronounced judgment on me, and the Almighty has afflicted me? ”
22. So Naomi came back from the land of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.