Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 81
For the music leader. According to the Gittith. Of Asaph.
81 Rejoice out loud to God, our strength!
Shout for joy to Jacob’s God!
2 Take up a song and strike the drum!
Sweet lyre along with harp!
3 Blow the horn on the new moon,
at the full moon, for our day of celebration!
4 Because this is the law for Israel;
this is a rule of Jacob’s God.
5 He made it a decree for Joseph
when he went out against the land of Egypt,
when I heard a language I did not yet know:
6 “I lifted the burden off your shoulders;
your hands are free of the brick basket!
7 In distress you cried out, so I rescued you.
I answered you in the secret of thunder.
I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
8 Listen, my people, I’m warning you!
If only you would listen to me, Israel.
9 There must be no foreign god among you.
You must not bow down to any strange deity.
10 I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up from Egypt’s land.
Open your mouth wide—I will fill it up!
11 But my people wouldn’t listen to my voice.
Israel simply wasn’t agreeable toward me.
12 So I sent them off to follow their willful hearts;
they followed their own advice.
13 How I wish my people would listen to me!
How I wish Israel would walk in my ways!
14 Then I would subdue their enemies in a second;
I would turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the Lord would grovel before me,
and their doom would last forever!
16 But I would feed you with the finest wheat.
I would satisfy you with honey from the rock.”
Gleaning in Bethlehem
2 Now Naomi had a respected relative, a man of worth, through her husband from the family of Elimelech. His name was Boaz. 2 Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field so that I may glean among the ears of grain behind someone in whose eyes I might find favor.”
Naomi replied to her, “Go, my daughter.” 3 So she went; she arrived and she gleaned in the field behind the harvesters. By chance, it happened to be the portion of the field that belonged to Boaz, who was from the family of Elimelech.
4 Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem. He said to the harvesters, “May the Lord be with you.”
And they said to him, “May the Lord bless you.”
5 Boaz said to his young man, the one who was overseeing the harvesters, “To whom does this young woman belong?”
6 The young man who was overseeing the harvesters answered, “She’s a young Moabite woman, the one who returned with Naomi from the territory of Moab. 7 She said, ‘Please let me glean so that I might gather up grain from among the bundles behind the harvesters.’ She arrived and has been on her feet from the morning until now, and has sat down for only a moment.”[a]
8 Boaz said to Ruth, “Haven’t you understood, my daughter? Don’t go glean in another field; don’t go anywhere else. Instead, stay here with my young women. 9 Keep your eyes on the field that they are harvesting and go along after them. I’ve ordered the young men not to assault you. Whenever you are thirsty, go to the jugs and drink from what the young men have filled.”
10 Then she bowed down, face to the ground, and replied to him, “How is it that I’ve found favor in your eyes, that you notice me? I’m an immigrant.” 11 Boaz responded to her, “Everything that you did for your mother-in-law after your husband’s death has been reported fully to me: how you left behind your father, your mother, and the land of your birth, and came to a people you hadn’t known beforehand. 12 May the Lord reward you[b] for your deed. May you receive a rich reward from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you’ve come to seek refuge.” 13 She said, “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, sir, because you’ve comforted me and because you’ve spoken kindly to your female servant—even though I’m not one of your female servants.”
14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here, eat some of the bread, and dip your piece in the vinegar.” She sat alongside the harvesters, and he served roasted grain to her. She ate, was satisfied, and had leftovers. 15 Then she got up to glean.
Boaz ordered his young men, “Let her glean between the bundles, and don’t humiliate her. 16 Also, pull out some from the bales for her and leave them behind for her to glean. And don’t scold her.”
17 So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed what she had gleaned; it was about an ephah[c] of barley. 18 She picked it up and went into town. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She brought out what she had left over after eating her fill and gave it to her. 19 Her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? May the one who noticed you be blessed.”
She told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.”
20 Naomi replied to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, who hasn’t abandoned his faithfulness with the living or with the dead.” Naomi said to her, “The man is one of our close relatives; he’s one of our redeemers.”
21 Ruth the Moabite replied, “Furthermore, he said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they’ve finished all of my harvest.’”
22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It’s good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, so that men don’t assault you in another field.”
23 Thus she stayed with Boaz’s young women, gleaning until the completion of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Preparing for Christ’s coming in judgment
14 Therefore, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found by him in peace—pure and faultless. 15 Consider the patience of our Lord to be salvation, just as our dear friend and brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, 16 speaking of these things in all his letters. Some of his remarks are hard to understand, and people who are ignorant and whose faith is weak twist them to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures.
Final instruction
17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been warned in advance, be on guard so that you aren’t led off course into the error of sinful people, and lose your own safe position. 18 Instead, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him belongs glory now and forever. Amen.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible