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19 The two women went on together to Bethlehem.

News of their arrival spread throughout Bethlehem. In fact, the whole community was humming with the report, with the women exclaiming, “Could it really be the same Naomi who left us so long ago?”

20 Naomi: Do not call me Naomi ever again, for I am no longer pleasant.
        Call me Mara instead, for I am filled with bitterness
        because the Highest One[a] has treated me bitterly.

There is a Hebrew wordplay here from Naomi, “pleasant,” to Mara, “bitterness.” Even Orpah (“neck”) turns her back on Naomi.

21     I left this place full, in spite of the famine,
        but the Eternal has brought me back empty from a plentiful land.
    Why would you call me “Pleasant”
        when the Eternal has testified against me,
        and the Highest One has brought disaster upon me?

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Footnotes

  1. 1:20ff Hebrew, Shaddai

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