Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B *Alternate* First Reading

A reading from the book of Ruth.

Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Oprah and the other Ruth. After they had lived about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. 

When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”

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. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to , and the Lord enabled here to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared from him. The women living there said, “Naomi has a son.” And they named him Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. 

The Word of God recorded in the book of Ruth.