Study Desk

So Naomi said to her, "Ruth, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Go back home with her."

So Ruth went out to the fields and walked behind the workers, picking up the heads of grain which they left. It so happened that she was in a field that belonged to Boaz.

Ruth bowed down with her face touching the ground, and said to Boaz, "Why should you be so concerned about me? Why should you be so kind to a foreigner?"

At mealtime Boaz said to Ruth, "Come and have a piece of bread, and dip it in the sauce." So she sat with the workers, and Boaz passed some roasted grain to her. She ate until she was satisfied, and she still had some food left over.

So Ruth gathered grain in the field until evening, and when she had beaten it out, she found she had nearly twenty-five pounds.

Naomi asked her, "Where did you gather all this grain today? Whose field have you been working in? May God bless the man who took an interest in you!" So Ruth told Naomi that she had been working in a field belonging to a man named Boaz.

So Ruth worked with them and gathered grain until all the barley and wheat had been harvested. And she continued to live with her mother-in-law.

Some time later Naomi said to Ruth, "I must find a husband for you, so that you will have a home of your own.

So wash yourself, put on some perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go where he is threshing, but don't let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.

So Ruth went to the threshing place and did just what her mother-in-law had told her.

"Who are you?" he asked. "It's Ruth, sir," she answered. "Because you are a close relative, you are responsible for taking care of me. So please marry me."

Stay here the rest of the night, and in the morning we will find out whether or not he will take responsibility for you. If so, well and good; if not, then I swear by the living Lord that I will take the responsibility. Now lie down and stay here till morning."

So she lay there at his feet, but she got up before it was light enough for her to be seen, because Boaz did not want anyone to know that she had been there.

She added, "He told me I must not come back to you empty-handed, so he gave me all this barley."

Boaz went to the meeting place at the town gate and sat down there. Then Elimelech's nearest relative, the man whom Boaz had mentioned, came by, and Boaz called to him, "Come over here, my friend, and sit down." So he went over and sat down.

and I think you ought to know about it. Now then, if you want it, buy it in the presence of these men sitting here. But if you don't want it, say so, because the right to buy it belongs first to you and then to me." The man said, "I will buy it."

Boaz said, "Very well, if you buy the field from Naomi, then you are also buying Ruth, the Moabite widow, so that the field will stay in the dead man's family."

So when the man said to Boaz, "You buy it," he took off his sandal and gave it to Boaz.

So Boaz took Ruth home as his wife. The Lord blessed her, and she became pregnant and had a son.

This went on year after year; whenever they went to the house of the Lord , Peninnah would upset Hannah so much that she would cry and refuse to eat anything.