Characters: Naomi, Ruth, Orpah.
Setting: Naomi, Ruth, Orpah, are on the road going toward Judah.
[Naomi stops and faces about.]
Naomi: Turn back, my daughters-in-law; return each of you to your mother's house. You have come with me far enough. I must take the rest of my journey alone.
Orpah and Ruth: Oh, do not send us back! We will not leave thee!
Naomi: Yea, you must leave me now. I am going home to my own country and my own people, to Bethlehem, Judah! It is ten long years since I left there to come to dwell in your land of Moab. But now that the famine is over I must return.
Orpah: But, Naomi, our mother-in-law, we love thee. Do not thou leave us!
Naomi: I must go. I came to this country happy—with my husband and two sons—but misfortune has dealt bitterly with me. My husband first died, and now my two sons, your husbands, are taken from me. I am old and sad. I have no one left to comfort me. I must go back to mine own people. Leave me, my daughters, and God bless you!
[Both daughters weep.]