Add parallel Print Page Options

So I decided to say this to you: If you want to buy back the land, then buy it! Buy it in front of the people who live here and in front of the elders of my people. If you don’t want to buy it, tell me. I am the only person after you who can buy back the land. If you don’t buy it back, I will.”

And the close relative said, “I will buy back the land.”

Then Boaz said, “When you buy the land from Naomi, you must marry Ruth, the dead man’s wife. She is the woman from Moab. That way, the land will stay in her dead husband’s family.”

The close relative answered, “Then I can’t buy back the land. If I did, I might lose what I can pass on to my own sons. I cannot buy the land back. So you buy it yourself.”

Read full chapter

I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you[a] will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you,(A) and I am next in line.”

“I will redeem it,” he said.

Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite,(B) the[b] dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.”(C)

At this, the guardian-redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem(D) it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.”(E)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Ruth 4:4 Many Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint, Vulgate and Syriac; most Hebrew manuscripts he
  2. Ruth 4:5 Vulgate and Syriac; Hebrew (see also Septuagint) Naomi and from Ruth the Moabite, you acquire the