Ruth 2:4-23

⁴ Behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to the reapers, “Yahweh be with you.”

They answered him, “Yahweh bless you.” ⁵ Then said Boaz to his servant who was set over the reapers, “Whose young lady is this?” ⁶ The servant who was set over the reapers answered, “It is the Moabite lady who came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab. ⁷ She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ So she came, and has continued even from the morning until now, except that she stayed a little in the house.” ⁸ Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Don’t go to glean in another field, and don’t go from here, but stay here close to my maidens. ⁹ Let your eyes be on the field that they reap, and go after them. Haven’t I commanded the young men not to touch you? When you are thirsty, go to the vessels, and drink from that which the young men have drawn.” ¹⁰ Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take knowledge of me, seeing I am a foreigner?” ¹¹ Boaz answered her, “It has fully been shown me, all that you have done to your mother-in-law since 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 that you didn’t know before. ¹² May Yahweh repay your work, and a full reward be given you from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” ¹³ Then she said, “Let me find favor in your sight, my lord, because you have comforted me, and because you have spoken kindly to your handmaid, though I am not as one of your handmaidens.” ¹⁴ At meal time Boaz said to her, “Come here, and eat of the bread, and dip your morsel in the vinegar.”

She sat beside the reapers, and they reached her parched grain, and she ate, and was satisfied, and left some of it. ¹⁵ When she had risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and don’t reproach her. ¹⁶ Also pull out some for her from the bundles, and leave it, and let her glean, and don’t rebuke her.”

¹⁷ So she gleaned in the field until evening; and she beat out that which she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah [1] of barley. ¹⁸ She took it up, and went into the city; and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned: and she brought forth and gave to her that which she had left after she was sufficed. ¹⁹ Her mother-in-law said to her, “Where have you gleaned today? Where have you worked? Blessed be he who noticed you.”

She showed her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” ²⁰ Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he of Yahweh, who has not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Naomi said to her, “The man is a close relative to us, one of our near kinsmen.” ²¹ Ruth the Moabitess said, “Yes, he said to me, ‘You shall stay close to my young men, until they have ended all my harvest.’” ²² Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maidens, and that they not meet you in any other field.” ²³ So she stayed close to the maidens of Boaz, to glean to the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and she lived with her mother-in-law.