Ruth

Chapter 1

¹ During the time that judges were ruling Israel, there was a time when the crops failed to produce food in that country. So a certain man, along with his wife and his two sons, left there and went to live for a while in the country of Moab. He was from the town of Bethlehem in the region of Judah in the country of Israel. ² His name was Elimelek, and the name of his wife was Naomi. The names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were part of the clan of Ephrath that lived in Bethlehem, in Judah. So they came to the country of Moab and stayed there.

³ Then Elimelek, the husband of Naomi, died, leaving her with her two sons. ⁴ The two sons married women from Moab. The name of one woman was Orpah, and the name of the other woman was Ruth. All of them lived there in Moab for about ten years. ⁵ The two sons Mahlon and Kilion also died, leaving Naomi without any children or a husband.

⁶ Now, someone in Moab had told Naomi that Yahweh had helped his people so that food was plentiful in Israel again. So she started the journey to leave the country of Moab and return to Bethlehem with her two daughters-in-law. ⁷ Both of her daughters-in-law accompanied Naomi when she left the place where she had been living. All together, they started walking on the road to return to the region of Judah.

⁸ Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to the house of your mother. May Yahweh treat both of you as kindly and faithfully as you both have treated your dead husbands and me. ⁹ May Yahweh allow each of you to marry another husband with whom you will have a secure home.” Then she kissed each of them, and all of them cried aloud and loudly expressed their grief.

¹⁰ But Orpah and Ruth said to Naomi, “We would rather return with you to your people group.”

¹¹ But Naomi said, “Return to your homes, my daughters! There is nothing for you to gain by coming with me. Most likely, I will not become pregnant again, or have any more sons who could become your husbands. ¹² Go back, my daughters, because I am too old to marry another husband. Even if I could tell you that I had hope for myself, and if I married another husband tonight, and even if I did bear sons, ¹³ surely you would not wait for them to grow up so that you could marry them! That is not a good enough reason for either of you to refrain from marrying a different husband. Yahweh has acted to me in such a way that has made my situation much worse than yours. No, my daughters! You must not choose my life for yourselves.”

¹⁴ Then all of them cried aloud and loudly expressed their grief again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye and left to return to her home. But Ruth refused to leave Naomi.

¹⁵ Then Naomi said to Ruth, “Look, your sister-in-law has turned around and is returning to her people group and to her gods. Go back with your sister-in-law.”

¹⁶ But Ruth answered, “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn around and stop following you! I promise you that I will go to whatever place you go, and I will sleep in whatever place you sleep. Your people group is now my people group, and I worship the same God that you worship. ¹⁷ I will die in whatever place you die, and others will bury me there. I am making a solemn promise before Yahweh to do all of that, and to do this as well: I will not leave you until one of us has died.”

¹⁸ Then Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her and would not change her mind. So Naomi stopped arguing with Ruth about it.

¹⁹ So the two women continued walking until they came to the town of Bethlehem. As soon as the two women entered Bethlehem, the people in town became very excited when they saw Naomi and Ruth. The women of the town exclaimed, “Naomi has been gone for so long that it is hard to believe that this woman we now see is truly the same person!”

²⁰ But Naomi said to them, “Do not call me Naomi (which means, "a pleasant person"). Instead, call me Mara (which means, "a bitter person"), because God Almighty has caused me to feel extremely bitter and sad about my life. ²¹ This is the situation concerning me: I had everything I could want when I left Bethlehem, but Yahweh has brought me back to Bethlehem without anything. There is no reason for anyone to call me Naomi. But this is the situation concerning Yahweh: the Almighty God has opposed me and treated me badly.”

²² So that is how Naomi returned home. Ruth, the woman from Moab, her daughter-in-law, was with her when she came back from the country of Moab. Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem at about the time when the people of Bethlehem were starting to harvest their barley.

Chapter 2

¹ There was a man who was from the same clan as Elimelek, and he was a relative of Naomi by her dead husband. His name was Boaz, and the people of Bethlehem greatly respected him.

² One day, Ruth (the woman from Moab) said to Naomi, “If you please, I want to go out to the farmland outside Bethlehem and pick up any grain that the harvesters happen to drop and leave behind. I will go behind any harvester who allows me to do that.”

Naomi answered her, “Go ahead, my daughter.”

³ So Ruth went outside the town and came to a field where she followed the harvesters and started picking up grain that they left behind. By chance, that section of the farmland around Bethlehem where Ruth was working happened to belong to Boaz, who was part of the same clan as Elimelek.

⁴ Then later in the day, Boaz came! He arrived at the field from Bethlehem. He greeted the harvesters, “May Yahweh be with you!”

And they greeted him, “May Yahweh bless you!”

⁵ Then Boaz came over to the foreman who was in charge of the harvesters. Boaz asked him, “Does that young woman belong to anybody?”

⁶ The foreman who was in charge of the reapers answered, saying, “That woman is from Moab. She is the one who came back with Naomi from somewhere in Moab." ⁷ She said to me, ‘Please let me pick up any grain that the harvesters might drop and leave behind, and please let me keep it for myself to eat.’ She has been working on her feet since early this morning until now. Right this moment she is resting in the shelter, but she has been resting only a short time.”

⁸ Then Boaz went over to Ruth and said, “I want to say something important to you, my dear. You do not need to go to any other field to pick up grain. In fact, you can stay here and work at any time, but stay close by my servant girls. ⁹ Watch the ground where the men are harvesting, and follow along behind them. I have given the young men strict instructions not to harm you. Whenever you are thirsty, you may go to the water jars and drink from the water that the young men draw.”

¹⁰ When she heard that, she knelt down in front of him with her face touching the ground. She asked him, “Why are you being so kind to me? I did not expect you to even notice me, since I am a foreigner.

¹¹ Boaz answered her, saying, “People have told me all about everything that you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband died. You left your father, your mother, and the country in which you were born. Not only that, but you have now come to live here among a people group that you never knew before. ¹² May Yahweh fully repay you for what you have done, and may you receive a complete reward from Yahweh, the God of Israel. I recognize that you are trusting him to take care of you, as a mother bird takes care of her little ones.”

¹³ She replied, “It is very kind of you, sir, to comfort me and to speak so kindly to me. You have treated me like one of your servant girls, even though I have lower status than any of them.”

¹⁴ When it was time to eat, Boaz said to her, “Come over here, and eat from our bread. Whatever you take, you may dip it in the vinegar as well.” So she sat down alongside the harvesters, and Boaz held out the sack of roasted grain for her to take some. She ate all that she wanted, and she even had some left over! ¹⁵ After Ruth had left to go back to work, Boaz commanded his workers, saying, “Let her pick up grain anywhere in the field that she wants, even between the bundles of grain that have been cut. Also, do not humiliate her. ¹⁶ In fact, I want you to pull out some stalks of grain from the bundles and drop them for her. Then leave them behind for her to pick up, and do not scold her for doing that!”

¹⁷ So Ruth gathered grain in the field until the sun went down. Then she knocked the kernels off the barley stalks that she had gathered. There was about 20 liters of barley kernels. ¹⁸ She carried the barley kernels back into town and showed her mother-in-law how much she had gathered. Then she took out her leftover grain from the midday meal, and gave it to Naomi.

¹⁹ Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you gather all this grain today? In whose field did you work? Someone took notice of you; may God bless whoever it was!”

Then Ruth identified for her mother-in-law the person responsible for her gathering so much. She said, "Boaz is the name of the man who owns the field where I worked today."

²⁰ Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May Yahweh bless him! Yahweh has not stopped acting kindly and faithfully to us, nor to our dead husbands!” And Naomi told Ruth, “That man is our close relative; he is one of the people who has a right to buy back our family property.”

²¹ Then Ruth, the woman from Moab, said, “Not only that, but he also said to me, ‘You can stay close by the young men who work for me for as long as it takes for them to finish harvesting all the farmland that I own.’”

²² Then Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “This is a good situation, my daughter. If you go out and work alongside his servant girls, then no one will harm you, which might happen in a different field.

²³ So Ruth worked alongside the servant girls who worked for Boaz and gathered stalks of grain until the workers had finished harvesting all the barley and all the wheat. During that time she continued to live with Naomi, her mother-in-law.

Chapter 3

¹ One day, Naomi said to Ruth, “My daughter, I have a responsibility as your mother-in-law to try to find a good husband for you who will provide you with a secure home. ² In order to fulfill my responsibility, this is what I suggest: you might marry Boaz, our close relative. You have been working alongside his servant girls; he is the man I am talking about. Listen carefully: tonight, he and his workers will be separating the grain from its chaff at the place where they thresh barley kernels. ³ First, bathe and put on some perfume. Then take your warm cloak with you and go down to the place where they thresh grain. He must not know that you are there until after he has finished eating food and drinking wine. ⁴ This is what you need to do when he lies down to go to sleep. Look carefully to see the exact place where he is lying down. Go to him, uncover his feet, then lie down yourself and go to sleep. After that, only he himself can tell you what to do concerning the possibility of marrying him.”

⁵ Ruth answered her, “I will do everything that you have said.”

⁶ So Ruth went down to the place where they thresh grain, and she did everything that her mother-in-law had told her to do. ⁷ Meanwhile, Boaz ate food and drank wine, and afterward he felt satisfied and happy. He went over to the edge of the grain pile, lay down there, and went to sleep. No one saw Ruth as she approached him, uncovered his feet, and lay down to sleep. ⁸ Sometime during the night, Boaz shivered and turned over. Imagine his surprise to find a woman, lying at his feet!

⁹ He asked, “Who are you?”

She replied, “I am Ruth, your servant. Would you take me, your servant, into your loving embrace as a wife? I am asking because you are one of the people who has a right to buy back the family property of my dead father-in-law."

¹⁰ Boaz answered, “May Yahweh bless you, my dear! You have already demonstrated your kindness and faithfulness to your mother-in-law. But the kindness and faithfulness you are showing now is even better, by not chasing after a young man to marry, either poor or rich. ¹¹ On the basis of that, my dear, you have nothing to fear. I will do for you everything that you have asked; because everyone in this town, even those whom people respect the most, knows that you are a worthy wife. ¹² However, while it is true that I am a close relative of Naomi’s dead husband, there is another man who is a closer relative than I am. He is the one primarily responsible to take care of you and Naomi. ¹³ Stay here for the rest of the night. When morning comes, I will ask him if he is willing to marry you and buy back the family property of your dead father-in-law. If so, then that is good; let him do that. But if he is not willing to marry you, then I solemnly promise you this: as surely as Yahweh lives, I myself will marry you and buy back the family property of your dead father-in-law. Go back to sleep until morning comes."

¹⁴ So she lay at his feet until early morning, but she got up to leave before the sky brightened enough for someone to be able to recognize her. Boaz said to the others who were there, “It would be best for no one to know that this woman came here during the night.” ¹⁵ Then he said to Ruth, “Bring the cloak that you are wearing and hold it out tightly.” So she held it out. He put a generous amount of barley into it, and lifted it for her to carry. Then he left to go into town.

¹⁶ When Ruth came home to her mother-in-law, Naomi said, “Are you betrothed now, my daughter?”

Then Ruth told her everything that Boaz had done for her. ¹⁷ She added, “He gave me all this barley. This was his reason: he said, ‘You must not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’”

¹⁸ Then Naomi said, “Stay here and wait, my daughter, until you find out what they decide about you. You should not need to wait very long, because Boaz will not rest until he has settled the matter. He will settle this today.”

Chapter 4

¹ Meanwhile, Boaz had walked up to the city gate (where the people of Bethlehem settled legal matters), and he sat down there. Just then, the man about whom Boaz had spoken was passing by! He was the other relative who had the first right to buy back the family property of Elimelek. Boaz called out to this man, "Come over here and sit down!" So the man came over and sat down. ² Then Boaz approached ten men who were older and whom people in Bethlehem highly respected. He said to each of them, "Sit down here.” So all of them sat down.

³ Then Boaz said to the man who had the first right to buy back the family property of Elimelek: “Naomi, the woman who returned from the country of Moab, is selling the section of the farmland around Bethlehem that belonged to Elimelek, our common relative who is now dead. ⁴ I thought that I would notify you, in front of these respected men and in front of everybody else sitting here, in order to give you an opportunity to acquire it. If you want to buy it, then buy it. But if you will not buy it, then tell me so that I may know; because you are first in line to buy it back for the family, and I am next after you.”

The man replied, “Yes, I will buy it.”

⁵ Then Boaz told him, “If you buy the field from Naomi, then you must also marry Ruth, the woman from Moab who is the widow of one of the dead sons of Naomi. You must do this so that Ruth might bear a son to inherit the property. Hopefully, the family will not die out completely.”

⁶ Then the other man said, “I cannot take Ruth to be my wife. If I did that, I might cause trouble in my family regarding my own family property. You may have the first right to buy back the family property of Elimelek, because I cannot do it.” ⁷ (At that time in Israel, a person would take off his sandal and give it to the other person in order to confirm legally any agreement between two people regarding the purchase of property or the exchange of goods. That was the Israelite custom.) ⁸ When the other man said to Boaz, “You may buy it," he took off one of his sandals.

⁹ Then Boaz said to the older men and to all the people who were watching: “Today, you are witnesses to the fact that I am legally acquiring from Naomi all the property that belonged to Elimelek as well as all the property that belonged to Kilion and Mahlon. ¹⁰ Furthermore, I am also acquiring Ruth, the woman from Moab who is the widow of Mahlon, to be my wife. If Ruth bears a son, he will be the heir of Mahlon and inherit the land, so that the family does not die out completely. Perhaps the family line of Elimelek will continue among his other relatives and among the leaders of this town. Today you are witnesses to these things!"

¹¹ All together, the people who were at the city gate and the older men replied, “We are witnesses! May Yahweh allow this woman, who is about to come into your household, to bear many children just like Rachel and Leah, who together mothered the nation of Israel. May you continue to do honorable deeds in Ephrathah, and may you become famous in Bethlehem! ¹² And may your family become like the family of your ancestor Perez, the son of Judah and Tamar, from the children that Yahweh gives to you by this young woman.”

¹³ So Boaz married Ruth, and she became his wife, and he had sexual relations with her. Then Yahweh enabled her to become pregnant, and she gave birth to a son.

¹⁴ Then the women of Bethlehem said to Naomi, “Praise Yahweh! He has never stopped taking care of you. Today, he has preserved both your family property and your family line. May the people of Israel acclaim him for who he is and for what he has done! ¹⁵ Yahweh will cause you to feel the joy of living once again, and he will continue to do so as you grow old. We are confident of that because of your daughter-in-law, who loves you and has given birth to this baby boy. Ruth has treated you more kindly than if you had seven sons.”

¹⁶ Naomi took the baby and held him close, and she became his caregiver. ¹⁷ The neighbor women named him Obed, and they explained his name by saying: “This situation is the same as if Naomi gave birth to this boy instead of Ruth!” Obed grew up and became the father of Jesse, who grew up and became the father of David.

¹⁸ Here is a list of the descendants of Perez. Perez became the father of Hezron. ¹⁹ Hezron became the father of Ram. Ram became the father of Amminadab. ²⁰ Amminadab became the father of Nahshon. Nahshon became the father of Salmon. ²¹ Salmon became the father of Boaz. Boaz became the father of Obed. ²² Obed became the father of Jesse. Jesse became the father of David.