Ruth 2

1Naomi had an acquaintance, a kinsman of her husband, a mighty man of valor from the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz.

2Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, "Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears after anyone in whose eyes I find favor." She said to her, "Go, my daughter."

3She went and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and her chance was the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from Elimelech's family.

4Look, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “Yahweh be with you.” They said to him, “Yahweh bless you.”

5Boaz said to his young servant overseeing the reapers, "Whose young woman is this?"

6The young servant appointed over the reapers answered and said, "She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the country of Moab."

7She said, "Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves." So she came and stood ever since the morning until now, except for this little sitting of hers in the house.

8Boaz said to Ruth, “Haven’t you heard, my daughter? Don’t go glean in another field, and don’t leave from here, but stay close with my young women.”

9Keep your eyes on the field they harvest, and follow after them. Haven't I instructed the young men not to touch you? When thirst strikes you, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men draw.

10She fell on her face, bowed to the ground, and said to him, "Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should recognize me—I, a foreigner?"

11Boaz answered her, "Everything you did for your mother-in-law after your husband's death has been fully reported to me, how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth and came to a people you did not know before."

12May Yahweh repay your work, and may your reward be full from Yahweh, God of Israel, under whose wings you came to take refuge.

13She said, "May I find favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me, and because you have spoken to the heart of your maidservant, though I myself am not like one of your maidservants."

14Boaz said to her at mealtime, "Come here and eat some of the bread, and dip your morsel in the vinegar." She sat beside the reapers, and he offered her parched grain, and she ate, was satisfied, and had some left over.

15She rose to glean, and Boaz charged his young men, "Even among the sheaves let her glean, and do not disgrace her."

16Also let some fall for her from the handfuls, and leave them, so she can glean, and do not rebuke her.

17She gleaned in the field until evening, threshed what she had gleaned, and it came to about an ephah of barley.

18She carried it into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned; she brought out what she had left after eating her fill and gave it to her.

19Her mother-in-law said to her, "Where did you glean today? And where did you work? May the one who recognized you be blessed." She told her mother-in-law the man with whom she had worked, and said, "The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz."

20Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "Blessed is he by Yahweh, who has not forsaken his kindness toward the living and the dead." Naomi said to her, "The man is a close relative to us, one of our redeemers."

21Ruth the Moabite said, "He also said to me, 'Stay with my young men until they finish all my harvest.'"

22Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, "It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, and that they do not meet you in any other field."

23She stayed close to Boaz's young women to glean until the barley harvest and wheat harvest ended, and she lived with her mother-in-law.