Ruth 1:15-22

Rachel Workman: ¹⁵ “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” “Her gods”: Refers to Chemosh the chief Moabite deity who required child sacrifice and other local deities. It's possible that Ruth loves Naomi or it's possible she loved the Lord God and didn't want to return to a life apart from Him.
¹⁶ But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” ¹⁸ When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.


¹⁹ So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”
²⁰ “Don’t call me Naomi,^[b]” she told them. “Call me Mara,^[c] because the Almighty^[d] has made my life very bitter. ²¹ I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted^[e] me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” Noami thought she was cursed when in fact later in the book we'll see that's far from the truth. It can certainly feel that way when you are in the middle of grief. It's very hard to see that God can and will make beauty out of our ashes when something feels so painful.

²² So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.

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Monday’s reading for Ruth 2:1-7. There is no reading for the remainder of the week. 

2 Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.

² And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.”

Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” ³ So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.

⁴ Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”

“The Lord bless you!” they answered.

⁵ Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?”

⁶ The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. ⁷ She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”