Ruth 1 — BSB
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Naomi Becomes a Widow
1Verse 1In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a certain man from Bethlehem in Judah, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the land of Moab.Verse 2The 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 entered the land of Moab and settled there.Verse 3Then Naomi’s husband Elimelech died, and she was left with her two sons,Verse 4who took Moabite women as their wives, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth.And after they had lived in Moab about ten years,Verse 5both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and without her husband.
Ruth’s Loyalty to Naomi
Verse 6When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab.Verse 7Accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road leading back to the land of Judah.Verse 8Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you loving devotion,+as you have shown to your dead and to me.Verse 9May the LORD enable each of you to find rest in the home of your new husband.”And she kissed them as they wept aloudVerse 10and said, “Surely we will return with you to your people.”Verse 11But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb to become your husbands?Verse 12Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons,Verse 13would you wait for them to grow up? Would you refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, it is much more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.”Verse 14Again they wept aloud, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.Verse 15“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; follow her back home.”Verse 16But Ruth replied:
“Do not urge me to leave youor to turn from following 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.Verse 17Where you die, I will die,and there I will be buried.May the LORD punish me,and ever so severely,if anything but deathseparates you and me.”Verse 18When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her.