So Naomi ¹  said, “Look, your sister-in-law is returning to her people and to her god. ²  Follow your sister-in-law back home!”

Ruth replied to Naomi, ¹  “I will do everything you have told ²  me ³  to do.” ⁴ 

When Naomi ¹  realized that Ruth ²  was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to dissuade her. ³ 

Now as she and her two daughters-in-law began to leave the place where she had been living to return to the land of Judah, ¹ 

But she replied ¹  to them, ²  “Don’t call me ‘Naomi’! ³  Call me ‘Mara’ ⁴  because the Sovereign One ⁵  has treated me very harshly. ⁶ 

Ruth ¹  knelt before him with her forehead to the ground ²  and said to him, “Why are you so kind ³  and so attentive to me, ⁴  even though ⁵  I am a foreigner?” ⁶ 

Naomi then said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, “It is good, my daughter, that you should go out to work with his female servants. ¹  That way you will not be harmed, which could happen in another field.” ² 

and she returned to her mother-in-law.When Ruth returned to her mother-in-law, Naomi ¹  asked, ²  “How did things turn out for you, ³  my daughter?” Ruth ⁴  told her about all the man had done for her. ⁵ 

She said, “He gave me these sixty pounds of barley, for he said to me, ¹  ‘Do not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’” ² 

So Boaz married Ruth and had sexual relations with her. ¹  The Lord enabled her to conceive ²  and she gave birth to a son.

The village women said to Naomi, “May the Lord be praised because he has not left you without a guardian ¹  today! May he ²  become famous in Israel! ³ 

But Ruth replied, “Stop urging me to abandon you! ¹  For wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will become my people, and your God will become my God.

One day Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go ¹  to the fields so I can gather ²  grain behind whoever permits me to do so.” ³  Naomi ⁴  replied, “You may go, my daughter.”

So Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen carefully, ¹  my dear! ²  Do not leave to gather grain in another field. You need not ³  go beyond the limits of this field. You may go along beside ⁴  my female workers. ⁵ 

Take note of ¹  the field where the men ²  are harvesting and follow behind with the female workers. ³  I will tell the men ⁴  to leave you alone. ⁵  When you are thirsty, you may go to ⁶  the water jars ⁷  and drink some of the water ⁸  the servants draw.” ⁹ 

Boaz replied to her, ¹  “I have been given a full report of ²  all that you have done for your mother-in-law following the death of your husband – how you left ³  your father and your mother, as well as your homeland, and came to live among people you did not know previously. ⁴ 

Ruth the Moabite replied, “He even ¹  told me, ‘You may go along beside my servants ²  until they have finished gathering all my harvest!’” ³ 

All the people who were at the gate and the elders replied, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is entering your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the house of Israel! May ¹  you prosper ²  in Ephrathah and become famous ³  in Bethlehem. ⁴