Proper 26 (31)

1Verse 1. In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a certain man from Bethlehem in Judah, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the land of Moab. 2Verse 2. The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah, and they entered the land of Moab and settled there. 3Verse 3. Then Naomi’s husband Elimelech died, and she was left with her two sons, 4Verse 4. who took Moabite women as their wives, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. And after they had lived in Moab about ten years, 5Verse 5. both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and without her husband. 6Verse 6. When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab. 7Verse 7. Accompanied 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 Judah. 8Verse 8. Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you loving devotion, as you have shown to your dead and to me. 9Verse 9. May the LORD enable each of you to find rest in the home of your new husband.” And she kissed them as they wept aloud 10Verse 10. and said, “Surely we will return with you to your people.” 11Verse 11. But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb to become your husbands? 12Verse 12. Return 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, 13Verse 13. would 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 the LORD has gone out against me.” 14Verse 14. Again they wept aloud, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. 15Verse 15. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; follow her back home.” 16Verse 16. But Ruth 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. 17Verse 17. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD punish me, and ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” 18Verse 18. When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her.

1Verse 1. These are the commandments and statutes and ordinances that the LORD your God has instructed me to teach you to follow in the land that you are about to enter and possess, 2Verse 2. so that you and your children and grandchildren may fear the LORD your God all the days of your lives by keeping all His statutes and commandments that I give you, and so that your days may be prolonged. 3Verse 3. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe them, so that you may prosper and multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you. 4Verse 4. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. 5Verse 5. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6Verse 6. These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts. 7Verse 7. And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8Verse 8. Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9Verse 9. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.