Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 81[a]
An Admonition to Fidelity
1 For the leader; “upon the gittith.”[b] Of Asaph.
I
2 Sing joyfully to God our strength;(A)
raise loud shouts to the God of Jacob!
3 Take up a melody, sound the timbrel,
the pleasant lyre with a harp.
4 [c]Blow the shofar at the new moon,
at the full moon, on our solemn feast.(B)
5 For this is a law for Israel,
an edict of the God of Jacob,(C)
6 He made it a decree for Joseph
when he came out of the land of Egypt.
II
7 [d]I heard a tongue I did not know:
“I removed his shoulder from the burden;[e]
his hands moved away from the basket.(D)
8 In distress you called and I rescued you;
I answered you in secret with thunder;
At the waters of Meribah[f] I tested you:(E) 9 ‘Listen, my people, I will testify against you
Selah
If only you will listen to me, Israel!(F)
10 There shall be no foreign god among you;[g](G)
you shall not bow down to an alien god.
11 ‘I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth that I may fill it.’
12 But my people did not listen to my words;
Israel would not submit to me.
13 So I thrust them away to the hardness of their heart;
‘Let them walk in their own machinations.’(H)
14 O that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways,(I)
15 In a moment I would humble their foes,
and turn back my hand against their oppressors.(J)
16 Those who hate the Lord will try flattering him,
but their fate is fixed forever.
17 But Israel I will feed with the finest wheat,
I will satisfy them with honey from the rock.”(K)
Chapter 2
The Meeting. 1 [a]Naomi had a powerful relative named Boaz,(A) through the clan of her husband Elimelech. 2 [b]Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “I would like to go and glean grain in the field of anyone who will allow me.” Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” 3 So she went. The field she entered to glean after the harvesters happened to be the section belonging to Boaz, of the clan of Elimelech. 4 [c]Soon, along came Boaz from Bethlehem and said to the harvesters, “The Lord be with you,” and they replied, “The Lord bless you.” 5 Boaz asked the young man overseeing his harvesters, “Whose young woman is this?” 6 The young man overseeing the harvesters answered, “She is the young Moabite who came back with Naomi from the plateau of Moab.(B) 7 [d]She said, ‘I would like to gather the gleanings into sheaves after the harvesters.’ Ever since she came this morning she has remained here until now, with scarcely a moment’s rest.”
8 Boaz then spoke to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Do not go to glean in anyone else’s field; you are not to leave here. Stay here with my young women. 9 Watch to see which field is to be harvested, and follow them. Have I not commanded the young men to do you no harm? When you are thirsty, go and drink from the vessels the young people have filled.” 10 Casting herself prostrate upon the ground, she said to him, “Why should I, a foreigner, be favored with your attention?” 11 (C)Boaz answered her: “I have had a complete account of what you have done for your mother-in-law after your husband’s death; you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom previously you did not know. 12 (D)May the Lord reward what you have done! May you receive a full reward from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.” 13 She said, “May I prove worthy of your favor, my lord. You have comforted me. You have spoken to the heart of your servant[e]—and I am not even one of your servants!” 14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and have something to eat; dip your bread in the sauce.” Then as she sat near the harvesters, he handed her some roasted grain and she ate her fill and had some left over. 15 As she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young people: “Let her glean among the sheaves themselves without scolding her, 16 and even drop some handfuls and leave them for her to glean; do not rebuke her.”
17 She gleaned in the field until evening, and when she beat out what she had gleaned it came to about an ephah[f] of barley, 18 which she took into the town and showed to her mother-in-law. Next she brought out what she had left over from the meal and gave it to her. 19 So her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you go to work? May the one who took notice of you be blessed!” Then she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked. “The man at whose place I worked today is named Boaz,” she said. 20 (E)“May he be blessed by the Lord, who never fails to show kindness to the living and to the dead,” Naomi exclaimed to her daughter-in-law. She continued, “This man is a near relative of ours, one of our redeemers.”[g] 21 “He even told me,” added Ruth the Moabite, “Stay with my young people until they complete my entire harvest.” 22 “You would do well, my daughter,” Naomi rejoined, “to work with his young women; in someone else’s field you might be insulted.” 23 So she stayed gleaning with Boaz’s young women until the end of the barley and wheat harvests.
14 Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace. 15 And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, as our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you,(A) 16 speaking of these things[a] as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures.
V. Final Exhortation and Doxology[b]
17 Therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, be on your guard not to be led into the error of the unprincipled and to fall from your own stability.(B) 18 But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory now and to the day of eternity. [Amen.](C)
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.