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          DASV: Ruth 1    

1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land.
So a man from Bethlehem in Judah went to live temporarily in the
country of Moab, he, his wife and his two sons.
2 The name of the man was Elimelek, and the name of his wife, Naomi,
and his two sons named Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites
of Bethlehem in Judah. They entered the country of Moab and
stayed there.
3 Elimelek, Naomi's husband, died and she was left with her two sons.
4 They married Moabite women. The name of the one was Orpah and
the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years.
5 Then Mahlon and Kilion both died. So the woman was left without
her two children and her husband.

6 She heard in Moab how the LORD had come to the aid of his people
providing them with food, so she and her daughters-in-law prepared
to return home.
7 So she set out from the place she had been living, along with her
two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to return to the
land of Judah.
8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, return each
of you to your mother's home. May the LORD treat you with the
same faithful kindness you have shown to your dead husbands
and to me.
9 May the LORD enable you to find rest each of you in the house
of a new husband." Then she kissed them, and they lifted their
voice and wept.
10 They said to her, "No, we will return with you to your people."
11 Naomi replied, "Turn back, my daughters: Why will ye go with me?
Do I yet have sons in my womb, that they may become your husbands?
12 Go home, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Even if I
thought there was still hope for me, and I had a husband tonight
and gave birth to sons,
13 would you wait until they were grown up? Would you stay
unmarried? No, my daughters, it has been more bitter for me
than for you, because the hand of the LORD has turned against me."
14 They lifted up their voice and wept again. Orpah kissed her
mother-in-law good-bye, but Ruth clung to her.
15 She said, "Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people
and to her god. Go, follow your sister-in-law back home."
16 Then Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you, to return from
following you, for where you go, I will go, and where you live,
I will live, your people will be my people, and your God my God.
17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.
The LORD punish me severely, if anything but death separates
you and me."
18 When she saw that she was persistent to go with her,
she stopped trying to discourage her.

19 So they both went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they
came to Bethlehem, all the town was excited by their arrival,
and the women asked, "Is this Naomi?"
20 She rebuffed them, "Do not call me 'Naomi' (pleasantness),
call me 'Mara' (bitter); for the Almighty has dealt bitterly
with me.
21 I went out full, and the LORD has brought me back home empty.
Why do you call me 'Naomi,' seeing the LORD has afflicted me,
and the Almighty has brought disaster on me?"
22 So Naomi returned, along with Ruth the Moabitess,
her daughter-in-law, who returned from the country of Moab.
Now they had arrived at Bethlehem during the beginning
of barley harvest.

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