Ruth 2

1Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing and wealth from the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.

2Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the fields and glean among the ears of grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.” Naomi said to her, “Go, my daughter.”

3So she went and gleaned in a field behind the harvesters. As it happened, she came to the part of the field that belonged to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

4Just then Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the harvesters, “Yahweh be with you!” They answered him, “Yahweh bless you!”

5Boaz asked his servant who was in charge of the harvesters, “Whose young woman is this?”

6The servant in charge of the harvesters answered, “She is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.

7She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ So she came and has been on her feet from morning until now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”

8Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field, and do not leave this one. Stay close to my young women here.

9Keep your eyes on the field they are harvesting, and follow along after them. I have ordered the young men not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the jars and drink from what the young men have drawn.”

10Then she fell facedown, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?”

11Boaz answered her, “I have been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband died: how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and came to a people you did not know before.

12May Yahweh repay you for what you have done. May you receive a full reward from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

13She said, “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not even one of your servants.”

14At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here and have some bread, and dip your piece in the sour wine.” So she sat down beside the harvesters, and he handed her some roasted grain. She ate until she was satisfied and had some left over.

15When she got up to glean, Boaz ordered his young men, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not humiliate her.

16Also pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.”

17So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it came to about an ephah of barley.

18She picked it up and went into the town, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after eating her fill.

19Her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!” So she told her mother-in-law about the one she had worked with. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.

20Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by Yahweh, who has not abandoned his kindness to the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours. He is one of our family redeemers.”

21Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay close to my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’”

22Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, for you to go out with his young women, so that no one will harm you in another field.”

23So she stayed close to Boaz’s young women to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law.