¹³ Remain this night, and in the morning, if he will act as next-of-kin^[a] for you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to act as next-of-kin^[b] for you, then, as the Lord lives, I will act as next-of-kin^[c] for you. Lie down until the morning.”^(A)

⁵ Then Boaz said, “The day you acquire the field from the hand of Naomi, you are also acquiring Ruth^[a] the Moabite, the widow of the dead man, to maintain the dead man’s name on his inheritance.”^(A)

²⁰ Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a relative of ours, one of our nearest kin.”^[a](A)

Levirate Marriage

⁵ “When brothers reside together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her,^{(A) 6} and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.^{(B) 7} But if the man has no desire to marry his brother’s widow, then his brother’s widow shall go up to the elders at the gate and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’^{(C) 8} Then the elders of his town shall summon him and speak to him. If he persists, saying, ‘I have no desire to marry her,’^{(D) 9} then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and declare, ‘This is what is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’^(E)

¹⁶ Humans, of course, swear by someone greater than themselves, and an oath given as confirmation puts an end to all dispute among them.^(A)

²⁴ “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.’^{(A) 25} Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. ²⁶ The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. ²⁷ Last of all, the woman herself died.

¹⁹ And he replied, “They were my brothers, the sons of my mother; as the Lord lives, if you had saved them alive, I would not kill you.”

²³ But I call on God as witness against me: it was to spare you that I did not come again to Corinth.^(A)