CHAPTER 2

¹And Naomi had a kinsman through her husband, a man of worth from the clan of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz. ²And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go, pray, to the field, and glean from among the ears of grain after I find favor in his eyes.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” ³And she went and came and gleaned in the field behind the reapers, and it chanced that she came upon the plot of Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech. ⁴And look, Boaz was coming from Bethlehem, and he said to the reapers, “May the LORD be with you!” and they said, “May the LORD bless you!” ⁵And Boaz said to his lad who was stationed over the reapers, “Whose is this young woman?” ⁶And the lad stationed over the reapers answered and said, “She is a young Moabite woman who has come back with Naomi from the plain of Moab. ⁷And she said, ‘Let me glean, pray, and gather from among the sheaves behind the reapers.’ And she has come and stood since the morning till now. She has barely stayed in the house.” ⁸And Boaz said to Ruth, “Have you not heard, my daughter—do not go to glean in another field, and also do not pass on from here, and so shall you cling to my young women. ⁹Your eyes be on the field in which they reap and go after them. Have I not charged the lads not to touch you? Should you be thirsty, you shall go to the pitchers and drink from what the lads draw from the well.” ¹⁰And she fell on her face and bowed to the ground and said to him, “Why should I find favor in your eyes to recognize me when I am a foreigner?” ¹¹And Boaz answered and said, “It was indeed told me, all that you did for your mother-in-law after your husband’s death, and that you left your mother and your father and the land of your birth to come to a people that you did not know in time past. ¹²May the LORD requite your actions and may your reward be complete from the LORD God of Israel under Whose wings you have come to shelter.” ¹³And she said, “May I find favor in the eyes of my lord, for you have comforted me and have spoken to the heart of your servant when I could scarcely be like one of your slavegirls.” ¹⁴And Boaz said to her at mealtime, “Come here and eat of the bread and dip your crust in vinegar.” And she sat alongside the reapers, and he bundled together roasted grain for her, and she ate and was sated and left some over. ¹⁵And she rose to glean, and Boaz charged his lads, saying, “Among the sheaves, too, she may glean, and you shall not harass her. ¹⁶And also she may certainly take her share from the loose ears of grain and glean, and you shall not chide her.” ¹⁷And she gleaned in the field till evening and beat out what she had gleaned, and it came to almost an ephah of barley. ¹⁸And she carried it and came to the town, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. And she took out and gave to her what she had left over after being sated. ¹⁹And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who recognized you be blessed!” And she told her mother-in-law how she had worked with him, and she said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.” ²⁰And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed is he to the LORD, Who has not forsaken His kindness with the living and with the dead!” And Naomi said to her, “The man is related to us, he is of our redeeming kin.” ²¹And Ruth the Moabite said, “Moreover, he said to me, ‘To the lads who are mine shall you cling until they finish all the harvest that is mine.’” ²²And Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you shall go out with his young women, and that they not trouble you in another field.” ²³And she clung to Boaz’s young women to glean till the barley harvest and the wheat harvest were finished. And she stayed with her mother-in-law.