Ruth gleans in the field of Boaz
1Naomi had a well-to-do kinsman, Boaz, from the clan of her husband Elimelech. 2And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to pick up the left-over grain in the field whose owner will allow me that favor.” Naomi said, “Go ahead, my daughter.” 3So she went to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. It happened that the field she entered belonged to Boaz of the clan of Elimelech.
4When Boaz came from Bethlehem, he greeted the harvesters, “Yahweh be with you.” They returned the greeting, “Yahweh bless you.”
5Noticing Ruth, Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, “To whom does that young woman belong?”
6The foreman replied, “She is the Moabite who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. 7She came this morning and asked leave to glean behind the harvesters. Since then she has been working without a moment’s rest.”
8Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Don’t go away from here to glean in anyone else’s field. Stay here with my women servants. 9See where the harvesters are and follow behind. I have ordered the men not to molest you. They have filled some jars with water. Go there and drink when you are thirsty.” 10Bowing down with her face to the ground, she exclaimed, “Why have I, a foreigner, found such favor in your eyes?”
11Boaz answered, “I have been told all about you – what you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband’s death, how you have gone with her, leaving your own father and mother and homeland, to live with a people you knew nothing about before you came here. 12May Yahweh reward you for this! May you receive full recompense from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge!”
13Ruth said, “May I prove worthy of your favor, my lord. You have consoled your servant with your kind words, though I am not the equal of your maidservants.”
14Boaz called her at mealtime, “come over, have some bread and dip it in the wine.” As she sat among the reapers, he handed her some roasted grain. She ate her fill and had some left over.
15When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his men, “Let her glean even among the sheaves and do not scold her. 16And pull some stalks from the bundles; leave them scattered for her to glean.” 17She worked until evening and when she threshed what she had gleaned it amounted to about an ephah. 18Ruth carried back to town the threshed barley, which she showed to her mother-in-law. She also gave her what she had left over from lunch.
19Naomi asked her daughter-in-law, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? May the man who took notice of you be blessed.” Ruth told her mother-in-law about the owner of the field where she had worked. “His name is Boaz,” she said. 20Naomi exclaimed, “May Yahweh bless him! God indeed is merciful both to the living and the dead. This man is a close relative, one with a right of redemption over us.”
21Ruth continued, “He even told me to stay with his servants until they finish harvesting the grain.” 22Naomi said, “It will be better for you, my daughter, to go out with his maidservants than to go working in some other field where harm might come to you.”
23Ruth, therefore, stayed close to the maidservants of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the wheat and barley harvests. And she continued living with her mother-in-law.
