Ruth 1
Open in the reader1In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a certain man from House-of-Bread in Praised, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the land of From-the-Father.
2The man’s name was My-God-Is-King, his wife’s name was Pleasant, and the names of his two sons were Sickly and Wasting-Away. They were Fruitful-One from House-of-Bread in Praised, and they entered the land of From-the-Father and settled there.
3Then Pleasant’s husband My-God-Is-King died, and she was left with her two sons,
4who took From-the-Father-Ones women as their wives, one named Back-of-the-Neck and the other named Friend. And after they had lived in From-the-Father about ten years,
5both Sickly and Wasting-Away also died, and Pleasant was left without her two sons and without her husband.
6When Pleasant heard in From-the-Father that He-Who-Is had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of From-the-Father.
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 Praised.
8Then Pleasant said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your mother’s home. May He-Who-Is show you loving devotion, as you have shown to your dead and to me.
9May He-Who-Is enable each of you to find rest in the home of your new husband.” And she kissed them as they wept aloud
10and said, “Surely we will return with you to your people.”
11But Pleasant replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb to become your husbands?
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,
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 He-Who-Is has gone out against me.”
14Again they wept aloud, and Back-of-the-Neck kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Friend clung to her.
15“Look,” said Pleasant, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; follow her back home.”
16But Friend replied: “Do not urge me to leave you or 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.
17Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May He-Who-Is punish me, and ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”
18When Pleasant saw that Friend was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her.
19So Pleasant and Friend traveled until they came to House-of-Bread. When they entered House-of-Bread, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women of the town exclaimed, “Can this be Pleasant?”
20“Do not call me Pleasant,” she replied. “Call me Bitter, because the Almighty has dealt quite bitterly with me.
21I went away full, but He-Who-Is has brought me back empty. Why call me Pleasant? After all, He-Who-Is has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me.”
22So Pleasant returned from the land of From-the-Father with her daughter-in-law Friend the From-the-Father-One. And they arrived in House-of-Bread at the beginning of the barley harvest.