Ruth Gleans in Boaz’ Field

2 Now Naomi had ^[a]a kinsman of her husband, a ^[b]man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. ² And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” ³ So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and ^[c]she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. ⁴ Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “May the Lord be with you.” And they said to him, “May the Lord bless you.” ⁵ Then Boaz said to his servant who was ^[d]in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” ⁶ The servant ^[e]in charge of the reapers replied, “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. ⁷ And she said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ Thus she came and has remained from the morning until now; she has been sitting in the house for a little while.”

⁸ Then Boaz said to Ruth, “^[f]Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field; furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here with my maids. ⁹ Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the ^[g]water jars and drink from what the servants draw.” ¹⁰ Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” ¹¹ Boaz replied to her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me, and how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and came to a people that you did not previously know. ¹² May the Lord reward your work, and your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge.” ¹³ Then she said, “I have found favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me and indeed have spoken ^[h]kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants.”

¹⁴ At mealtime Boaz said to her, “^[i]Come here, that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar.” So she sat beside the reapers; and he ^[j]served her roasted grain, and she ate and was satisfied and had some left. ¹⁵ When she rose to glean, Boaz commanded his servants, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not insult her. ¹⁶ Also you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her.”

¹⁷ So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. ¹⁸ She took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also took it out and gave ^[k]Naomi what she had left after ^[l]she was satisfied. ¹⁹ Her mother-in-law then said to her, “Where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed.” So 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.” ²⁰ Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed of the Lord who has not withdrawn his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Again Naomi said to her, “The man is ^[m]our relative, he is one of our ^[n]closest relatives.” ²¹ Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “^[o]Furthermore, he said to me, ‘You should stay close to my servants until they have finished all my harvest.’” ²² Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maids, so that others do not fall upon you in another field.” ²³ So she stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

Sundry Laws

25 “If there is a dispute between men and they go to ^[a]court, and ^[b]the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, ² then it shall be if the wicked man ^[c]deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his ^[d]guilt. ³ He may beat him forty times but no more, so that he does not beat him with many more stripes than these and your brother is not degraded in your eyes.

⁴ “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.

⁵ “When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. ⁶ It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall ^[e]assume the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. ⁷ But if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ ⁸ Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, ‘I do not desire to take her,’ ⁹ then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall ^[f]declare, ‘Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ ¹⁰ In Israel his name shall be called, ‘The house of him whose sandal is removed.’

¹¹ “If two men, a man and his ^[g]countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, ¹² then you shall cut off her ^[h]hand; ^[i]you shall not show pity.

¹³ “You shall not have in your bag ^[j]differing weights, a large and a small. ¹⁴ You shall not have in your house ^[k]differing measures, a large and a small. ¹⁵ You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just ^[l]measure, that your days may be prolonged in the ^[m]land which the Lord your God gives you. ¹⁶ For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the Lord your God.

¹⁷ “Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, ¹⁸ how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary; and he did not ^[n]fear God. ¹⁹ Therefore it shall come about when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to ^[o]possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget.