Ruth

Chapter 1

¹ During the time that judges ruled Israel, there was a famine in that country. A man from the town of Bethlehem in the region of Judah in the country of Israel left there and went to live for a while in the country of Moab. His wife and his two sons went with him. ² The man’s name was Elimelek and his wife’s name was Naomi. The names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were from the clan of Ephrath that was living in Bethlehem, in Judah. They came to Moab and stayed there. ³ Then Elimelek died, and Naomi had only her two sons with her. ⁴ They married women from Moab. One of them was named Orpah and the other one was named Ruth. But after they had lived in that area for about ten years, ⁵ Mahlon and Kilion also died. So then Naomi was alone without her sons or husband.

⁶ Then someone told Naomi while still in Moab that Yahweh had helped his people and that now there was plenty of food in Israel. So she got ready to return to Bethlehem with her two daughters-in-law. ⁷ They left the place where they had been living and started to travel back to the land of Judah. ⁸ As they were walking, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Each of you should turn around and go back to your mother’s home. I am asking Yahweh to be as kind to you as you have been to our dead husbands and to me. ⁹ I hope that he will allow each of you to have another husband with whom you will have a secure home.” Then she kissed each of them, and they cried aloud. ¹⁰ They each said, “No! We will return with you to your relatives.”

¹¹ But Naomi said, “No, my daughters, return home. It will not do any good for you to come with me! It is not possible for me to have more sons who could become your husbands. ¹² You should go back, my daughters. It is too late for me to have another husband. Even if, for argument’s sake, I had some real hope of having a husband tonight and had more sons, ¹³ would you remain unmarried until they grew up? No, my daughters! Yahweh has struck me, and my bitter life would be too hard for you.”

¹⁴ Then Ruth and Orpah cried loudly again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye and left, but Ruth refused to leave Naomi. ¹⁵ Naomi said to her, “Look! Your sister-in-law is going back to her relatives and to her gods! Go back with her!” ¹⁶ But Ruth replied, “No! Please do not ask me to let you go or to turn around and stop following you! Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you stay, I will stay. Your relatives will be my relatives, and I will worship the God you worship. ¹⁷ Wherever you die, there I will die and they will bury me there. May Yahweh punish me severely if I leave you before I die.” ¹⁸ When Naomi realized that Ruth was set on going with her, she stopped urging her to return home.

¹⁹ So the two women continued walking until they came to the town of Bethlehem. There was a huge commotion when they got there. The whole town was talking about them. The women of the town exclaimed, “It is hard to believe that this is Naomi!” ²⁰ Naomi said to them, “You should not call me Naomi any more, because it means ‘pleasant.’ Instead, call me Mara, because it means ‘bitter.’ God Almighty has made my life very bitter. ²¹ When I left, I had everything I could want but Yahweh has brought me back without anything. Do not call me Naomi. Yahweh has opposed me. Almighty God has treated me badly.”

²² So that is how Naomi returned home along with her daughter-in-law Ruth, the woman from Moab. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the barley harvest was just starting.

Chapter 2

¹ One of Naomi’s dead husband’s relatives, a member of his clan, was a very rich man named Boaz. ² One day Ruth (the woman from Moab) said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the grain that the harvesters leave behind. I will go behind any harvester who gives me permission.” Naomi replied, “Go ahead, my daughter.” ³ So Ruth went. When she got to the fields she followed the harvesters and picked up grain. That part of the field just happened to belong to Boaz, Elimelek’s relative.

⁴ Just then, Boaz returned from town. He greeted the harvesters, saying, “May Yahweh be with you!” They replied, “May Yahweh bless you!”

⁵ Then Boaz saw Ruth, and asked the foreman, “Who is that young woman related to?” ⁶ The foreman replied, “She is the woman from Moab who returned from there with Naomi. ⁷ She said to me, ‘Please let me pick up the grain that the men who are harvesting leave behind.’ Aside from a short break inside, she has worked almost non-stop since this morning.” ⁸ Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Young lady, listen to me. You do not need to go to any other field or anywhere else to gather grain. You should stay here with my servant girls. ⁹ Watch where the men are harvesting, and follow along behind my servant girls. I have told the men who are harvesting not to assault you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get some water to drink from the jars that the men have filled.”

¹⁰ Then she knelt before him with her face touching the ground. She exclaimed, “Why are you being so kind to me? I did not think you would pay any attention to me since I am a foreigner!” ¹¹ Boaz replied, “People have told me about everything you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband died. They told me that you left your parents and your homeland, and you came here to live among people whom you did not previously know. ¹² I pray that Yahweh will repay you for what you have done. May you receive a good reward from Yahweh, the God of Israel, because you are trusting him to protect you.”

¹³ She replied, “Sir, I hope I will continue to please you. You have comforted me with your kindness, even though I am not even one of your servant girls.”

¹⁴ When it was time to eat, Boaz said to her, “Come over here and get some food. Take this bread and dip it in the vinegar and eat it.” Then when she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all that she wanted and had some left over. ¹⁵ As she stood up to go back to work, Boaz ordered his workers, “Even if she gathers some grain near the bundles of grain that have been cut, do not try to stop her. ¹⁶ Instead, make sure that you pull out some stalks of grain from the bundles and leave them on the ground for her to pick up, and do not scold her.”

¹⁷ So Ruth gathered grain in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley that she had gathered, to separate the kernels from the stalks. The barley filled a large basket. ¹⁸ She carried it back to town and showed her mother-in-law how much she had gathered. She also gave her mother-in-law the grain that was left over from her lunch. ¹⁹ Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you gather all this grain today? In whose field exactly did you work? May God do good to the man who was so kind to you.” Then Ruth told her about where she had worked that day. She said, “The name of that field’s owner is Boaz.” ²⁰ Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May Yahweh bless him! He has not stopped acting kindly toward us, who are still living, and to our husbands who have died.” Then she added, “That man is a close relative of Elimelek; in fact, he is one of those responsible for taking care of us.”

²¹ Then Ruth (the woman from Moab) said, “He also told me, ‘Stay with my workers until they are done bringing in all my grain from the field.’”

²² Naomi replied to her daughter-in-law Ruth, “My daughter, it will be good for you to go to his field with his servant girls, because if you go to someone else’s field, someone might harm you.”

²³ So Ruth worked alongside of Boaz’s servant girls. She gathered stalks of grain until the workers had finished harvesting both the barley and the wheat. During that time she continued to live with Naomi.

Chapter 3

¹ One day, Naomi said to Ruth, “My daughter, I want to arrange for you to have a secure home with a good husband. ² Boaz is a close relative of ours. Remember, you worked with his servant girls. Listen carefully. Tonight he will be at the place where they thresh the barley. He will be separating the grain from the chaff. ³ Bathe yourself and put on some perfume. Put on your best clothes. Then go down to the place where they thresh the grain. But do not let him know that you are there until he is finished eating and drinking. ⁴ Pay attention to where he lies down to sleep. Then go over to him, uncover his feet, and lie close to them. When he wakes up, he will tell you what to do.”

⁵ Ruth replied, “I will do everything that you have told me to do.” ⁶ So she went down to the place where they thresh the grain. There she did everything that her mother-in-law had told her to do.

⁷ When Boaz finished eating and drinking, he was feeling good. He went over to the far end of the grain pile, lay down there, and went to sleep. Then Ruth stealthily approached him. She took the covering off his feet and lay down by them. ⁸ In the middle of the night, he woke up suddenly. He sat up and realized that a woman was lying at his feet. ⁹ He asked her, “Who are you?” She replied, “I am your servant, Ruth. Since you are the one responsible for my dead husband’s family, please make me secure by marrying me.”

¹⁰ Boaz replied, “May Yahweh bless you, my dear! You acted kindly toward your mother-in-law previously, and now you are acting even more kindly toward me by not chasing after a young man to marry, whether rich or poor. ¹¹ Now, my dear, I will do everything that you asked. Do not be afraid, because all the people in this town know that you are an honorable woman. ¹² However, while I am one of Naomi’s close relatives and therefore responsible for you both, there is another man who is more responsible for you than I am because he is more closely related to Naomi. ¹³ You stay here for the rest of the night. Tomorrow morning I will tell this man about you. If he says that he will take care of you, fine, we will let him marry you. But if he is not willing to do that, I solemnly promise that as surely as Yahweh lives, I will marry you and take care of you. So stay here until it is morning.”

¹⁴ Then Boaz added, “It would be best if no one knew that you were here.” So she lay at his feet until early morning and got up to leave before it was light enough that people would be able to recognize her. ¹⁵ He also said to her, “Bring me your cloak and spread it out.” When she did that, he poured a generous amount of barley into it and put it on her back. Then he went into town.

¹⁶ When Ruth arrived home, her mother-in-law asked her, “Is that you, my daughter?” Then Ruth told her everything that Boaz had done and planned to do for her. ¹⁷ She also said to Naomi, “He gave me all this barley, saying, ‘I do not want you to return to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’” ¹⁸ Then Naomi said, “My daughter, just wait here until we see what happens. That man will undoubtably take care of this today.”

Chapter 4

¹ Meanwhile, Boaz went up to the town gate where official business was conducted and sat down there. Before long, the close relative that Boaz had mentioned came along. Boaz called out to him, “You there, come over here and sit down.” So the man came over and sat down. ² Boaz then gathered ten of the older, well-respected men from the town and asked them, “Please sit here so you can witness our business.” So they sat down. ³ Then Boaz said to his relative, “Did you know that the field that belonged to our relative Elimelek is for sale? Naomi, who recently returned from Moab, is selling it. ⁴ I thought that I should tell you so you can take possession of it here in front of these respected men who have agreed to be our witnesses. If you wish to buy it, do so. If not, let me know because you are the only one who can stop me from buying it myself.” The man replied, “I will take it!” ⁵ Then Boaz told him, “When you buy the land from Naomi, you will also need to marry Ruth, our relative’s widow from Moab, in order that she may have a son to inherit the property and carry on the name of her dead husband.” ⁶ Then the nearer relative said, “I cannot be responsible for all that! Doing that would endanger my son’s inheritance. You may be responsible for her in my place. I cannot afford it.”

⁷ (At that time, it was the custom in Israel that when two people agreed to redeem or exchange anything between them, one man would take off one of his sandals and give it to the other man. That was the way they finalized transactions in Israel.) ⁸ So the relative said to Boaz, “You buy the field yourself!” And he took off one of his sandals and gave it to Boaz.

⁹ Then Boaz said to the respected men and to all the other people who were there, “Today you have all seen that I have bought from Naomi all the property that belonged to Elimelek, Mahlon, and Kilion. ¹⁰ I am also taking Ruth, Mahlon’s widow from Moab, to be my wife. This is in order that she may give birth to a son who will be considered Mahlon’s son. He will inherit the property and carry on the family name among his relatives and here in his hometown. Today you all are witnesses of what I have done.”

¹¹ All the respected men and the others who were sitting at the town gate agreed and said, “Yes, we are witnesses. May Yahweh allow this woman, who will be coming into your home, to be like Rachel and Leah, the two who bore our ancestors and started our people, Israel. May you become rich in the clan of Ephrathah and famous here in Bethlehem. ¹² May your family be like the family of your ancestor Perez, son of Judah and Tamar, because of the many descendants that Yahweh will give to you and this young woman.”

¹³ So Boaz took Ruth to be his wife and slept with her. Yahweh enabled her to become pregnant, and she gave birth to a son. ¹⁴ The women of Bethlehem said to Naomi, “Praise Yahweh for giving you a man to preserve your family today. May he become famous throughout Israel. ¹⁵ He will make you feel young again, and he will take care of you when you become old, because your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has given birth to him. She has been better to you than if you had seven sons.”

¹⁶ Then Naomi took the baby and put him on her lap, and became a second mother for him. ¹⁷ The women who were living nearby said, “It is as though Naomi now has a son!” And they named him Obed. Later, Obed became the father of Jesse, who became the father of David. ¹⁸ Here is a list of the descendants of Perez: Perez’s son was Hezron. ¹⁹ Hezron’s son was Ram. Ram’s son was Amminadab. ²⁰ Amminadab’s son was Nahshon. Nahshon’s son was Salmon. ²¹ Salmon’s son was Boaz. Boaz’s son was Obed. ²² Obed’s son was Jesse. Jesse’s son was David.