Although it is true that I am a guardian-redeemer of our family, there is another who is more closely related than I.   . . . But if he is not willing, as surely as the Lord lives I will do it. . . . Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate and sat down there just as the guardian-redeemer he had mentioned came along. . . . Then he said to the guardian-redeemer, "Naomi, who has come back from Moab, ...  Read More

One day Ruth's mother-in-law Naomi said to her, "My daughter, I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for. Now Boaz, with whose women you have worked, is a relative of ours. Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. Wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don't let him know you are there until he has...  Read More

Her mother-in-law asked her, "Where did you glean today?  . . . Blessed be the man who took notice of you!" Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. "The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz," she said."The LORD bless him!" Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. "He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead." She added, "That man ...  Read More

She asked him, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me -- a foreigner?"Boaz replied, "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband -- how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the ...  Read More

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor." Naomi said to her, "Go ahead, my daughter." So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was workin...  Read More

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, "can this be Naomi?" "Don't call me Naomi," she told them, "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter, I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty ha...  Read More

When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of His people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home . . . back to the land of Judah. Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the LORD show you kindness . . ."  Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, "We will go back ...  Read More

In the days when the judges ruled, there was famine in the land. So, a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man's name was Elimelek, his wife's name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.Now Elimelek, Naomi's...  Read More

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn't love others, I would be nothing.If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my b...  Read More

The tribes of Israel sent messengers throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, "What about this awful crime that was committed among you? Now turn those wicked men of Gibeah over to us so that we may put them to death and purge the evil from Israel."But the Benjamites would not listen to their fellow Israelites.  . . . At once the Benjamites mobilized twenty-six thousand swordsmen from their towns...  Read More

In those days Israel had no king. Now a Levite . . . took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.   . . . She left him and went back to her parents' home in Bethlehem . . .  After she had been there for four months, her husband went to her to persuade her to return. . . . Then when the man, with his concubine and his servant, got up to leave, his father-in-law, the woman's father, said . . .  "Spend ...  Read More

God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea.Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!  . . . The LORD of Heaven's Armies is here among us; the God of Israel is our fortress. . . . "Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I wi...  Read More