Ruth 2

¹ Now Naomi had a kinsman on her husband’s side, well-to-do and of Elimelech’s clan. His name was Boaz.

² Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, ‘Let me go into the fields and glean among the ears of corn[*a] in the footsteps of some man who will look on me with favour’. And she said to her, ‘Go, my daughter’.

³ So she set out and went to glean in the fields after the reapers. And it chanced that she came to that part of the fields which belonged to Boaz of Elimelech’s clan.

⁴ Now Boaz, as it happened, had just come from Bethlehem. ‘Yahweh be with you!’ he said to the reapers. ‘Yahweh bless you!’ they replied.

⁵ Boaz said to a servant of his who was in charge of the reapers, ‘To whom does this young woman belong?’

⁶ And the servant in charge of the reapers replied, ‘The girl is the Moabitess, the one who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab,

⁷ and she said, “Please let me glean and gather the ears of corn after the reapers”. So she came and has been on her feet from morning till now.’

⁸ Boaz said to Ruth, ‘Listen, my daughter, and understand this. You are not to glean in any other field, do not leave here but stay with my servants.

⁹ Keep your eyes on whatever part of the field they are reaping and follow behind. I have ordered my servants not to molest you. And if you are thirsty, go to the pitchers and drink what the servants have drawn.’

¹⁰ Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground. And she said to him, ‘How have I so earned your favour that you take notice of me, even though I am a foreigner?’

¹¹ And Boaz answered her, ‘I have been told all you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband’s death, and how you left your own father and mother and the land where you were born to come among a people whom you knew nothing about before you came here.

¹² May Yahweh reward you for what you have done! May rich recompense be made to you by Yahweh, the God of Israel, to whom you have come, to find shelter beneath his wings.’

¹³ Then she said, ‘May I find favour in your eyes, my lord, since you have given me courage and spoken kindly to your maidservant, though indeed I am not the equal of one maidservant of yours’.

¹⁴ When it was time to eat Boaz said to her, ‘Come, eat some of this bread and dip your piece in the wine’. Ruth sat with the reapers and Boaz made a heap of roasted grain for her and she ate till her hunger was satisfied, and she had some left over.

¹⁵ Then she got up to glean and Boaz gave orders to his servants, ‘Let her glean among the sheaves themselves,’ he said ‘and do not check her.

¹⁶ And see you pull a few ears of corn from the bundles and let them fall. Let her glean them, and do not scold her.’

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

¹⁸ And taking it with her, she went into the town. She showed her mother-in-law what she had gleaned. and also showed her the food she had set aside after satisfying her hunger, and gave it to her.

¹⁹ And her mother-in-law said to her, ‘Where did you glean today? Where have you been working? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!’ Then Ruth told her mother-in-law in whose field she had worked, ‘The name of the man with whom I have been working today’ she said ‘is Boaz’.

²⁰ Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, ‘May he be blessed by Yahweh who does not withhold his kindness from living or dead! This man’ Naomi added ‘is a relative of ours. He is one of those who has the right of redemption over us.’

²¹ Then Ruth said to her mother-in-law, ‘He also said to me, “Stay with my servants until they have gathered in all my harvest”‘.

²² And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, ‘It is better for you, my daughter, to go with his servants than to go to some other field where you might be molested’.

²³ So Ruth stayed with the servants of Boaz and gleaned until the barley and wheat harvests were done. And she went on living with her mother-in-law.