The Judges & Ruth

And Naomi saith to her two daughters-in-law, `Go, turn back, each to the house of her mother; Jehovah doth with you kindness as ye have done with the dead, and with me;

Jehovah doth grant to you, and find ye rest each in the house of her husband;' and she kisseth them, and they lift up their voice and weep.

And they say to her, `Surely with thee we go back to thy people.'

And Naomi saith, `Turn back, my daughters; why do ye go with me? are there yet to me sons in my bowels that they have been to you for husbands?

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 to-night to a husband, and also I have borne sons:

for them do ye wait till that they grow up? for them do ye shut yourselves up, not to be to a husband? nay, my daughters, for more bitter to me than to you, for the hand of Jehovah hath gone out against me.'

And they lift up their voice, and weep again, and Orpah kisseth her mother-in-law, and Ruth hath cleaved to her.

And she saith, `Lo, thy sister-in-law hath turned back unto her people, and unto her god, turn thou back after thy sister-in-law.'

And Ruth saith, `Urge me not to leave thee--to turn back from after thee; for whither thou goest I go, and where thou lodgest I lodge; thy people is my people, and thy God my God.

Where thou diest I die, and there I am buried; thus doth Jehovah to me, and thus doth He add--for death itself doth part between me and thee.'

And she seeth that she is strengthening herself to go with her, and she ceaseth to speak unto her;

and they go both of them till their coming in to Beth-Lehem; and it cometh to pass at their coming in to Beth-Lehem, that all the city is moved at them, and they say, `Is this Naomi?'

And she saith unto them, `Call me not Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly to me,

I went out full, and empty hath Jehovah brought me back, why do ye call me Naomi, and Jehovah hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath done evil to me?'

And Naomi turneth back, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, who hath turned back from the fields of Moab, and they have come in to Beth-Lehem at the commencement of barley-harvest.

And Naomi hath an acquaintance of her husband's, a man mighty in wealth, of the family of Elimelech, and his name is Boaz.

And Ruth the Moabitess saith unto Naomi, `Let me go, I pray thee, into the field, and I gather among the ears of corn after him in whose eyes I find grace;' and she saith to her, `Go, my daughter.'

And she goeth and cometh and gathereth in a field after the reapers, and her chance happeneth--the portion of the field is Boaz's who is of the family of Elimelech.

And lo, Boaz hath come from Beth-Lehem, and saith to the reapers, `Jehovah is with you;' and they say to him, `Jehovah doth bless thee.'

And Boaz saith to his young man who is set over the reapers, `Whose is this young person?'

And the young man who is set over the reapers answereth and saith, `A young woman--Moabitess--she is , who came back with Naomi from the fields of Moab,

and she saith, Let me glean, I pray thee--and I have gathered among the sheaves after the reapers; and she cometh and remaineth since the morning and till now; she sat in the house a little.

And Boaz saith unto Ruth, `Hast thou not heard, my daughter? go not to glean in another field, and also, pass not over from this, and thus thou dost cleave to my young women:

thine eyes are on the field which they reap, and thou hast gone after them; have not I charged the young men not to touch thee? when thou art athirst then thou hast gone unto the vessels, and hast drunk from that which the young men draw.'

And she falleth on her face, and boweth herself to the earth, and saith unto him, `Wherefore have I found grace in thine eyes, to discern me, and I a stranger?'