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¹ And it comes to pass, in [the] days [when] the ones judging judge, that there is a famine in the land, and there goes a man from Beth-Lehem-Judah to sojourn in the fields of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.² And the name of the man [is] Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephraimites from Beth-Lehem-Judah; and they come into the fields of Moab, and are there.³ And Elimelech husband of Naomi dies, and she is left, she and her two sons;⁴ and they take to them wives, Moabitesses: the name of the first [is] Orpah, and the name of the second Ruth; and they dwell there about ten years.⁵ And they die also, both of them—Mahlon and Chilion—and the woman is left of her two children and of her husband.

⁶ And she rises, she and her daughters-in-law, and turns back from the fields of Moab, for she has heard in the fields of Moab that God has looked after His people—to give to them bread.⁷ And she goes out from the place where she has been, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they go in the way to return to the land of Judah.⁸ And Naomi says to her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return, each to the house of her mother; YHWH does with you kindness as you have done with the dead, and with me;⁹ YHWH grants to you, and you find rest each in the house of her husband"; and she kisses them, and they lift up their voice and weep.¹⁰ And they say to her, "Surely with you we go back to your people."¹¹ And Naomi says, "Turn back, my daughters; why do you go with me? Are there yet to me sons in my bowels that they have been to you for husbands?¹² Turn back, my daughters, go, for I am too aged to be to a husband; though I had said, There is for me hope, also, I have been tonight to a husband, and also I have borne sons:¹³ do you wait for them until they grow up? Do you shut yourselves up for them, not to be to a husband? No, my daughters, for more bitter to me than to you, for the hand of YHWH has gone out against me."¹⁴ And they lift up their voice, and weep again, and Orpah kisses her mother-in-law, and Ruth has cleaved to her.¹⁵ And she says, "Behold, your sister-in-law has turned back to her people, and to her god, turn back after your sister-in-law."¹⁶ And Ruth says, "Do not urge me to leave you—to turn back from after you; for to where you go I go, and where you lodge I lodge; your people [is] my people, and your God my God.¹⁷ Where you die I die, and there I am buried; thus does YHWH to me, and thus He adds—for death itself parts between me and you."¹⁸ And she sees that she is strengthening herself to go with her, and she ceases to speak to her;

¹⁹ and the two of them go until their coming to Beth-Lehem; and it comes to pass at their coming to Beth-Lehem, that all the city is moved at them, and they say, "Is this Naomi?"²⁰ And she says to them, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly to me,²¹ I went out full, and YHWH has brought me back empty, why do you call me Naomi, and YHWH has testified against me, and the Almighty has done evil to me?"²² And Naomi turns back, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, who has turned back from the fields of Moab, and they have come to Beth-Lehem at the commencement of barley-harvest.