² Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working. See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor.^(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) 10} Throughout Israel his family shall be known as ‘the house of him whose sandal was pulled off.’

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) 21} Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’ ” ²² Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is better, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, otherwise someone might bother you in another field.” ²³ So she stayed close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests, and she lived with her mother-in-law.^(B)

⁸ Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women.

Ruth Meets Boaz

2 Now Naomi had a kinsman on her husband’s side, a prominent rich man of the family of Elimelech whose name was Boaz.^(A)

¹¹ For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father.^[a] For this reason Jesus^[b] is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,^{(A) 12} saying,

¹³ And again,

And again,

¹⁴ Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,^(D)