14. Again they wept aloud; then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye, but Ruth clung to her.
15. “See now,” she said, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god. Go back after your sister-in-law!”
16. But Ruth said, “Do not press me to go back and abandon you!Wherever you go I will go,wherever you lodge I will lodge.Your people shall be my peopleand your God, my God.
17. Where you die I will die,and there be buried.May the Lord do thus to me, and more, if even death separates me from you!”
18. Naomi then ceased to urge her, for she saw she was determined to go with her.
19. So they went on together until they reached Bethlehem. On their arrival there, the whole town was excited about them, and the women asked: “Can this be Naomi?”
20. But she said to them, “Do not call me Naomi [‘Sweet’]. Call me Mara [‘Bitter’], for the Almighty has made my life very bitter.
21. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why should you call me ‘Sweet,’ since the Lord has brought me to trial, and the Almighty has pronounced evil sentence on me.”
22. Thus it was that Naomi came back with her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth, who accompanied her back from the plateau of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.