to her, "No,
we will return with you to your people." But Naomi said, "Go back, my
daughters; why should you go with me? Can I still have sons who might
become your husbands? Go back, my daughters, go your own way, for I am
too old to have a husband. Even if I should say, 'I have hope,' even if
I should have a husband to-night and should have sons, would you wait
for them until they were grown up? Would you remain single for them? No,
my daughters! I am sorry for you, for Jehovah has afflicted me." Then
they again wept aloud, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but
Ruth stayed with her.

Naomi said, "See, your sister-in-law is going back to her own people and
to her own gods; go along with her!" But Ruth answered, "Do not urge me
to leave you or to go back, for wherever you go I will go, and wherever
you stay I will stay; your people shall be my people, and your God my
God; I will die where you die and be buried there. May Jehovah bring a
curse upon me, if anything but death separate you and me." When Naomi
saw that Ruth had made up her mind to go with her, she ceased urging her
to return.

So they travelled on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived
there, the whole town was interested, and the women said, "Is this
Naomi?" But she said to them, "Do not call me Naomi which means
Sweetness: call me Mara which means Bitterness, for the Almighty has
given me a bitter lot. I had plenty when I left, but Jehovah has brought
me back empty-handed. Why should you call me Naomi, now that Jehovah has
turned against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?" So Naomi and Ruth
returned from Moab; and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the
barley harvest.

Now Naomi was related through her husband to Boaz, a very wealthy man of
the family of Elimelech. Ruth, the Moabitess, said to Naomi, "Let me now
go into the fields and pick up the scattered heads of grain after him
whose favor I should win." Naomi said to her, "Go, my daughter."

So she went to pick up grain in the field after the reapers; and it was
her good fortune to pick up grain in that part of the field which
belonged to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. When Boaz come
from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, "Jehovah be with you," they
answered him, "May Jehovah bless you." Then Boaz said to his servant who
had charge of the reapers, "Whose maiden is this?" The servant replied,
"It is the Moabite maiden who came back with Naomi from the land