Ruth 1

1 ¹ In the days when the judges ruled, a famine came upon the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah went to live for a while in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

Elimelech and Naomi

² The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah, and they came to the country of Moab and remained there.

³ Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. ⁴ They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years,

⁵ both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two children and without her husband.

Ruth's Unbreakable Bond

⁶ When she heard in Moab that our Father had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi set out with her two daughters-in-law to return home from there.

The Road Home

⁷ So she left the place where she had been living, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they set out on the road back to the land of Judah.

⁸ Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the Sovereign Father show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead and to me." ⁹ "May the Sovereign Father grant that each of you finds rest in the home of another husband." Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud.

¹⁰ And they said to her, "No — we will return with you to your people."

¹¹ But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Have I any more sons in my womb who could become your husbands?" ¹² Return home, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I said there was still hope for me, even if I had a husband tonight and bore sons, ¹³ would you wait for them until they grew up? Would you stay unmarried, holding out for them? No, my daughters. It is far more bitter for me than for you, because our Father's hand has turned against me."

¹⁴ At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

¹⁵ "Look," Naomi said, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her."

¹⁶ But Ruth replied, "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your Father my Father." ¹ 1 v16 Ruth's vow is one of the canonical entry-points where a Gentile binds herself to Israel's God — and through her, our Father weaves a Moabite woman into the family line that leads to David and to Jesus. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die and there I will be buried. May the Sovereign Father punish me ever so severely if anything but death separates you and me."

¹⁸ When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

Back to Bethlehem

¹⁹ So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women asked, "Can this be Naomi?"

²⁰ "Don't call me Naomi," she told them. "Call me Mara, for the Almighty has made my life very bitter." ² 2 v20 Naomi means "pleasant"; Mara means "bitter." She renames herself to match the grief she is carrying home. ²¹ "I went away full, but our Father has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when our Father has afflicted me and the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me?"

²² So Naomi returned from Moab, and with her Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.