Study Desk

Her sons took Moabite women as their wives: one was named Orpah and the second was named Ruth. After they lived in Moab about 10 years,

Again they wept loudly, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

But Ruth replied: Do not persuade me to leave you or go back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.

When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her.

So Naomi came back from the land of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Ruth the Moabitess asked Naomi, "Will you let me go into the fields and gather fallen grain behind someone who allows me to?" Naomi answered her, "Go ahead, my daughter."

So Ruth left and entered the field to gather grain behind the harvesters. She happened to be in the portion of land belonging to Boaz, who was from Elimelech's family.

Then Boaz said to Ruth, "Listen, my daughter. Don't go and gather grain in another field, and don't leave this one, but stay here close to my female servants.

So Ruth gathered grain in the field until evening. She beat out what she had gathered, and it was about 26 quarts of barley.

Then her mother-in-law said to her, "Where did you gather barley today, and where did you work? May the Lord bless the man who noticed you." Ruth told her mother-in-law about the men she had worked with and said, "The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz."

Ruth the Moabitess said, "He also told me, ‘Stay with my young men until they have finished all of my harvest.'"

So Naomi said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, "My daughter, it is good for you to work with his female servants, so that nothing will happen to you in another field."

Ruth stayed close to Boaz's female servants and gathered grain until the barley and the wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

So Ruth said to her, "I will do everything you say."

So he asked, "Who are you?" "I am Ruth, your slave," she replied. "Spread your cloak over me, for you are a family redeemer."

And he told Ruth, "Bring the shawl you're wearing and hold it out." When she held it out, he shoveled six measures of barley into her shawl, and she went into the town.

She went to her mother-in-law, Naomi, who asked her, "How did it go, my daughter?" Then Ruth told her everything the man had done for her.

Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you will also acquire Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the deceased man, to perpetuate the man's name on his property."

I will also acquire Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon's widow, as my wife, to perpetuate the deceased man's name on his property, so that his name will not disappear among his relatives or from the gate of his home. You are witnesses today."

Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he was intimate with her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.