Douay Rheims Original ↷
Ruth 1 📜 📕 ↷
Naomi Becomes a Widow
1 IN the days of one Judge, when the Judges ruled, there came a famine in the Land. And there went a man of Bethlehem Juda to sojourn in the land of Moab, with his wife and two children.📜💬📚
2 Himself was called Elimelech, and his wife Noemi: and his two sons, the one Mahalon, and the other Chelion, Ephraites of Bethlehem Juda. And entering into the country of Moab, they abode there.📜💬📚
3 And Elimelech the husband of Noemi died: and she remained with her sons.📜💬📚
4 Who took wives of the Moabites, of the which one was called Orpha, and the other Ruth. And they abode there ten years,📜💬📚
5 and both died, to wit, Mahalon and Chelion: and the woman remained destitute of her two children & her husband.📜💬📚
Ruth's Loyalty to Naomi
6 And she arose to go into her country with both her daughters in law from the country of Moab: for she had heard that our Lord had respected his people, & had given them victuals.📜💬📚
7 She therefore went forth from the place of her peregrination, with both her daughters in law: and being now set in the way to return into the Land of Juda,📜💬📚
8 she said to them: Go into your mother's house, our Lord do mercy with you, as you have done with the dead and with me.📜💬📚
9 Grant he unto you to find rest in the house of your husbands, which you shall take. And she kissed them. Who lifting up their voice began to weep,📜💬📚
10 & to say: We will go on with thee to thy people.📜💬📚
11 To whom she answered: Return my daughters, why come you with me? Shall I have sons any more in my womb, that you may hope for husbands of me?📜💬📚
12 Return my daughters, and go your ways: for I am now spent with old age, and not fit for wedlock. Although I might conceive this night, and bear children,📜💬📚
13 if you would expect till they grow, and be of man's age, you shall be old women before you marry. Do not so my daughters, I beseech you: for your distress doth the more grieve me, & the hand of our Lord is come forth against me.📜💬📚
14 Therefore lifting up their voice they began to weep again: Orpha kissed her mother in law, and returned: Ruth cleaved to her mother in law,📜💬📚
15 to whom Noemi said: Behold thy kinswoman is returned to her people, and to her gods, go with her.📜💬📚
16 Who answered: Be not against me, to the end that I should leave thee and depart: for whither soever thou shalt go, I will go: and where thou shalt abide, I also will abide. Thy people my people, and thy God my God.📜💬📚
17 The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die: and there will I take a place for my burial. These things do God to me, & these things add he, if death only shall not separate me and thee.📜💬📚
18 Noemi therefore seeing that Ruth with a steadfast mind had determined to go forward with her, would not be against it, nor persuade her any more to return to her friends:📜💬📚
Return to Bethlehem
19 and they went forth together, and came into Bethlehem. Who being entered into the city, a brute was quickly spread among them: and the women said: This is that Noemi.📜💬📚
20 To whom she said: Call me not Noemi (that is to say, beautiful) but call me Mara (that is to say, bitter) because with bitterness hath the Almighty very much replenished me.📜💬📚
21 I went forth full, and our Lord hath brought me back empty. Why therefore do you call me Noemi whom our Lord hath humbled, and the Almighty hath afflicted?📜💬📚
22 Noemi therefore came with Ruth the Moabite her daughter in law, from the Land of her peregrination: and returned into Bethlehem, when barley was first reaped.📜💬📚
Next Chapter: Ruth 2
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