Boaz Meets Ruth

1And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth, from the family of Elimelech. And His name was Boaz.

2And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Let me go, please, to the field, and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose eyes I may find favor.”

And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”

3And she went, and she came, and she gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the family of Elimelech.

4And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “YHWH be with you⁺!”

And they answered him, “YHWH blesses you.”

5And Boaz said to his young man who was set over the reapers, “To whom is this young woman?”

6And the servant who was set over the reapers answered and said, “A young woman, a Moabitess, she is, the one returning with Naomi from a field of Moab. 7And she said, ‘Let me glean, please, and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ And she came and remained from the morning and until now, though she rested in the house a little.”

8And Boaz said to Ruth, “Will you not listen, my daughter? Do not go to glean in another field, and also do not go from this place, and thus you shall cling together with my young women. 9Let your eyes be in the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? When you are thirsty, you shall go to the vessels, and you shall drink from what the young men draw.”

10And she fell on her face and she bowed herself to the earth and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me though I am a foreigner?”

11And Boaz answered and said to her, “It has surely been declared to me all that you have done with your mother-in-law after the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know yesterday and the day before yesterday. 12May YHWH repay your work, and may you receive your full wages from YHWH, God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.”

13And she said, “Let me find favor in your eyes, my lord. For you have comforted me and have spoken to the heart of your maidservant, and I am not like one of your maidservants.”

14And Boaz said to her at the time of food, “Come here and eat from the bread, and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar.” And she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain, and she ate and was satisfied, and she had some left over.

15And she rose up to glean, and Boaz commanded his young men, saying, “Even among the sheaves let her glean, and do not shame her. 16And also you⁺ shall surely draw out for her from the bundles and you⁺ shall leave them, and shall let her glean. And you⁺ shall not rebuke her.”

17And she gleaned in the field until the evening. And she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley.† 18And she took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. And she brought out and gave to her what she had left over from being satisfied.

19And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where have you gleaned today, and where did you work? May the one who took notice of you be blessed.”

And she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, and said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.”

20And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he by YHWH, who has not forsaken His kindness with the living and with the dead.” And Naomi said to her, “The man is a relation of ours. He is one of our kinsman-redeemers.†”

21And Ruth the Moabitess said, “Also surely he said to me, ‘With the young men who are to me you shall cling, until that they have finished all the harvest that is unto me.’”

22And Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, and they will not fall upon you in another field.”

23And she clung with the young women of Boaz, to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she dwelt with her mother-in-law.