Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

God the Judge of All

¹⁴ So she lay there at his feet, but she got up before it was light enough for her to be seen, because Boaz did not want anyone to know that she had been there. ¹⁵ Boaz said to her, “Take off your cloak and spread it out here.” She did, and he poured out almost fifty pounds of barley and helped her lift it to her shoulder. Then she returned to town with it. ¹⁶ When she arrived home, her mother-in-law asked her, “How did you get along, daughter?”

Ruth told her everything that Boaz had done for her. ¹⁷ She added, “He told me I must not come back to you empty-handed, so he gave me all this barley.”

¹⁸ Naomi said to her, “Now be patient, Ruth, until you see how this all turns out. Boaz will not rest today until he settles the matter.”

Boaz Marries Ruth

4 Boaz went to the meeting place at the town gate and sat down there. Then Elimelech's nearest relative, the man whom Boaz had mentioned, came by, and Boaz called to him, “Come over here, my friend, and sit down.” So he went over and sat down. ² Then Boaz got ten of the leaders of the town and asked them to sit down there too. When they were seated, ³ he said to his relative, “Now that Naomi has come back from Moab, she wants to sell the field that belonged to our relative Elimelech, ⁴ and I think you ought to know about it. Now then, if you want it, buy it in the presence of these men sitting here. But if you don't want it, say so, because the right to buy it belongs first to you and then to me.”

The man said, “I will buy it.”

⁵ Boaz said, “Very well, if you buy the field from Naomi, then you are also buying Ruth,^[a] the Moabite widow, so that the field will stay in the dead man's family.”

⁶ The man answered, “In that case I will give up my right to buy the field, because it would mean that my own children would not inherit it. You buy it; I would rather not.”

⁹ Do not add any widow to the list of widows unless she is over sixty years of age. In addition, she must have been married only once^{[a] 10} and have a reputation for good deeds: a woman who brought up her children well, received strangers in her home, performed humble duties for other Christians, helped people in trouble, and devoted herself to doing good.

¹¹ But do not include younger widows in the list; because when their desires make them want to marry, they turn away from Christ, ¹² and so become guilty of breaking their earlier promise to him. ¹³ They also learn to waste their time in going around from house to house; but even worse, they learn to be gossips and busybodies, talking of things they should not. ¹⁴ So I would prefer that the younger widows get married, have children, and take care of their homes, so as to give our enemies no chance of speaking evil of us. ¹⁵ For some widows have already turned away to follow Satan. ¹⁶ But if any Christian woman has widows in her family, she must take care of them and not put the burden on the church, so that it may take care of the widows who are all alone.