Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁶ While Naomi was in Moab, she heard that the Lord had come to help his people and had given them food again. So she and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab and return home. ⁷ Naomi and her daughters-in-law left the place where they had lived and started back to the land of Judah. ⁸ But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back home, each of you to your own mother’s house. May the Lord be as kind to you as you have been to me and my sons who are now dead. ⁹ May the Lord give you another happy home and a new husband.”

When Naomi kissed the women good-bye, they began to cry out loud. ¹⁰ They said to her, “No, we want to go with you to your people.”

¹¹ But Naomi said, “My daughters, return to your own homes. Why do you want to go with me? I cannot give birth to more sons to give you new husbands; ¹² go back, my daughters, to your own homes. I am too old to have another husband. Even if I told myself, ‘I still have hope’ and had another husband tonight, and even if I had more sons, ¹³ should you wait until they were grown into men? Should you live for so many years without husbands? Don’t do that, my daughters. My life is much too sad for you to share, because the Lord has been against me!”

¹⁴ The women cried together out loud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law Naomi good-bye, but Ruth held on to her tightly.

¹⁵ Naomi said to Ruth, “Look, your sister-in-law is going back to her own people and her own gods. Go back with her.”

Ruth Stays with Naomi

¹⁶ But Ruth said, “Don’t beg me to leave you or to stop following you. Where you go, I will go. Where you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. ¹⁷ And where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. I ask the Lord to punish me terribly if I do not keep this promise: Not even death will separate us.”

¹⁸ When Naomi saw that Ruth had firmly made up her mind to go with her, she stopped arguing with her.

Jesus Will Come Again

3 My friends, this is the second letter I have written you to help your honest minds remember. ² I want you to think about the words the holy prophets spoke in the past, and remember the command our Lord and Savior gave us through your apostles. ³ It is most important for you to understand what will happen in the last days. People will laugh at you. They will live doing the evil things they want to do. ⁴ They will say, “Jesus promised to come again. Where is he? Our fathers have died, but the world continues the way it has been since it was made.” ⁵ But they do not want to remember what happened long ago. By the word of God heaven was made, and the earth was made from water and with water. ⁶ Then the world was flooded and destroyed with water. ⁷ And that same word of God is keeping heaven and earth that we now have in order to be destroyed by fire. They are being kept for the Judgment Day and the destruction of all who are against God.

⁸ But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: To the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow in doing what he promised—the way some people understand slowness. But God is being patient with you. He does not want anyone to be lost, but he wants all people to change their hearts and lives.

¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The skies will disappear with a loud noise. Everything in them will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be exposed.^[a]