¹ In the days when the Judges were governing, a famine occurred in the country and a certain man from Bethlehem of Judah went-he, his wife and his two sons -- to live in the Plains of Moab.

² The man was called Elimelech, his wife Naomi and his two sons Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem of Judah. Going to the Plains of Moab, they settled there.

³ Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she and her two sons were left.

⁴ These married Moabite women: one was called Orpah and the other Ruth. They lived there for about ten years.

⁵ Mahlon and Chilion then both died too, and Naomi was thus bereft of her two sons and her husband.

⁶ She then decided to come back from the Plains of Moab with her daughters-in-law, having heard in the Plains of Moab that God had visited his people and given them food.

⁷ So, with her daughters-in-law, she left the place where she was living and they took the road back to Judah.

⁸ Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, 'Go back, each of you to your mother's house.

⁹ May Yahweh show you faithful love, as you have done to those who have died and to me. Yahweh grant that you may each find happiness with a husband!' She then kissed them, but they began weeping loudly,

¹⁰ and said, 'No, we shall go back with you to your people.'

¹¹ 'Go home, daughters,' Naomi replied. 'Why come with me? Have I any more sons in my womb to make husbands for you?

¹² Go home, daughters, go, for I am now too old to marry again. Even if I said, "I still have a hope: I shall take a husband this very night and shall bear more sons,"

¹³ would you be prepared to wait for them until they were grown up? Would you refuse to marry for their sake? No, daughters, I am bitterly sorry for your sakes that the hand of Yahweh should have been raised against me.'

¹⁴ They started weeping loudly all over again; Orpah then kissed her mother-in-law and went back to her people. But Ruth stayed with her.

¹⁵ Naomi then said, 'Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Go home, too; follow your sister-in-law.'

¹⁶ But Ruth said, 'Do not press me to leave you and to stop going with you, for wherever you go, I shall go, wherever you live, I shall live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.

¹⁷ Where you die, I shall die and there I shall be buried. Let Yahweh bring unnameable ills on me and worse ills, too, if anything but death should part me from you!'

¹⁸ Seeing that Ruth was determined to go with her, Naomi said no more.

¹⁹ The two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. Their arrival set the whole town astir, and the women said, 'Can this be Naomi?'

²⁰ To this she replied, 'Do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, for Shaddai has made my lot bitter.

²¹ I departed full, and Yahweh has brought me home empty. Why, then, call me Naomi, since Yahweh has pronounced against me and Shaddai has made me wretched?'

²² This was how Naomi came home with her daughter-in-law, Ruth the Moabitess, on returning from the Plains of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.