would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me much for your sakes, for the hand of the LORD has gone out against me."

She said, "Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people, and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law.

She said to them, "Do not call me Naomi. Call me Marah; for Shaddai has dealt very bitterly with me.

I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has testified against me, and Shaddai has afflicted me?"

She said, 'Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.' So she came, and has continued even from the morning until now, except that she stayed a little in the house."

Boaz answered her, "It has fully been shown to me, all that you have done to your mother-in-law since the death of your husband; and how you have left your father and your mother, and the land of your birth, and have come to a people that you didn't know before.

Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "Blessed be he of the LORD, who has not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead." Naomi said to her, "The man is a close relative to us, one of our near kinsmen."

Therefore wash yourself, anoint yourself, get dressed, and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.

Then she said, "Wait, my daughter, until you know how the matter will fall; for the man will not rest, until he has finished the thing this day."

He said to the near kinsman, "Naomi, who has come back out of the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech's.

All the people who were in the gate, and the elders, said, "We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who has come into your house like Rachel and like Leah, which two built the house of Israel; and treat you worthily in Ephrathah, and be famous in Bethlehem.

The women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer; and let his name be famous in Israel.

He shall be to you a restorer of life, and sustain you in your old age, for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him."