Cannot update brew in MAC OS X el capitan and keep getting a Load error with `require`

I am not sure why this is happening but I cannot update brew in my MAC OS X El Capitan. I did:

brew update

and got:

warning: unable to unlink CONTRIBUTING.md: Permission denied
warning: unable to unlink SUPPORTERS.md: Permission denied
fatal: cannot create directory at '.github': Permission denied

to go over that issue I sudoed the above command but got further issues:

sudo brew update
Password:
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require': cannot load such file -- mach (LoadError)
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/extend/pathname.rb:2:in `<top (required)>'
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:3:in `<top (required)>'
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /usr/local/Library/brew.rb:16:in `<main>'

now whenever I do brew install I get:

brew update

/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require': cannot load such file -- mach (LoadError)
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/extend/pathname.rb:2:in `<top (required)>'
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:3:in `<top (required)>'
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
	from /usr/local/Library/brew.rb:16:in `<main>'

in fact, it seems that whenever I do anything, like just type brew it gets the same message. Does anyone know how to fix this?

You shouldn’t use sudo with Homebrew. First run the following to ensure you own everything under /usr/local:

sudo chown -R $(whoami):admin /usr/local

Alternative command for newer macOS version:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)/*

Then reset your Homebrew repo to a clean state:

cd /usr/local && git fetch && git reset --hard origin/master

It should fix your issues.

(replace /usr/local with $(brew --prefix) if you installed Homebrew elsewhere)