Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
81 The Lord makes us strong! Sing praises! Sing to Israel’s God!
2 Sing, accompanied by drums; pluck the sweet lyre and harp. 3 Sound the trumpet! Come to the joyous celebrations at full moon, new moon, and all the other holidays. 4 For God has given us these times of joy; they are scheduled in the laws of Israel. 5 He gave them as reminders of his war against Egypt where we were slaves on foreign soil.
I heard an unknown voice that said, 6 “Now I will relieve your shoulder of its burden; I will free your hands from their heavy tasks.” 7 He said, “You cried to me in trouble, and I saved you; I answered from Mount Sinai[a] where the thunder hides. I tested your faith at Meribah, when you complained there was no water. 8 Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings. O Israel, if you will only listen! 9 You must never worship any other god, nor ever have an idol in your home.[b] 10 For it was I, Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Only test me![c] Open your mouth wide and see if I won’t fill it. You will receive every blessing you can use!
11 “But no, my people won’t listen. Israel doesn’t want me around. 12 So I am letting them go their blind and stubborn way, living according to their own desires.
13 “But oh, that my people would listen to me! Oh, that Israel would follow me, walking in my paths! 14 How quickly then I would subdue her enemies! How soon my hands would be upon her foes! 15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him; their desolation would last forever. 16 But he would feed you with the choicest foods. He would satisfy you with honey for the taking.”[d]
2 Now Naomi had an in-law there in Bethlehem who was a very wealthy man. His name was Boaz.
2 One day Ruth said to Naomi, “Perhaps I can go out into the fields of some kind man to glean the free grain[a] behind his reapers.”
And Naomi said, “All right, dear daughter. Go ahead.”
3 So she did. And as it happened, the field where she found herself belonged to Boaz, this relative of Naomi’s husband.
4-5 Boaz arrived from the city while she was there. After exchanging greetings with the reapers he said to his foreman, “Hey, who’s that girl over there?”
6 And the foreman replied, “It’s that girl from the land of Moab who came back with Naomi. 7 She asked me this morning if she could pick up the grains dropped by the reapers, and she has been at it ever since except for a few minutes’ rest over there in the shade.”
8-9 Boaz went over and talked to her. “Listen, my child,” he said to her. “Stay right here with us to glean; don’t think of going to any other fields. Stay right behind my women workers; I have warned the young men not to bother you; when you are thirsty, go and help yourself to the water.”
10-11 She thanked him warmly. “How can you be so kind to me?” she asked. “You must know I am only a foreigner.”
“Yes, I know,” Boaz replied, “and I also know about all the love and kindness you have shown your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you left your father and mother in your own land and have come here to live among strangers. 12 May the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, bless you for it.”
13 “Oh, thank you, sir,” she replied. “You are so good to me, and I’m not even one of your workers!”
14 At lunchtime Boaz called to her, “Come and eat with us.”
So she sat with his reapers and he gave her food,[b] more than she could eat. 15 And when she went back to work again, Boaz told his young men to let her glean right among the sheaves without stopping her, 16 and to snap off some heads of barley and drop them on purpose for her to glean, and not to make any remarks. 17 So she worked there all day, and in the evening when she had beaten out the barley she had gleaned, it came to a whole bushel! 18 She carried it back into the city and gave it to her mother-in-law, with what was left of her lunch.
19 “So much!” Naomi exclaimed. “Where in the world did you glean today? Praise the Lord for whoever was so kind to you.” So Ruth told her mother-in-law all about it and mentioned that the owner of the field was Boaz.
20 “Praise the Lord for a man like that! God has continued his kindness to us as well as to your dead husband!” Naomi cried excitedly. “Why, that man is one of our closest relatives!”[c]
21 “Well,” Ruth told her, “he said to come back and stay close behind his reapers until the entire field is harvested.”
22 “This is wonderful!” Naomi exclaimed. “Do as he has said. Stay with his girls right through the whole harvest; you will be safer there than in any other field!”
23 So Ruth did and gleaned with them until the end of the barley harvest, and then the wheat harvest too.
14 Dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen and for him to come, try hard to live without sinning; and be at peace with everyone so that he will be pleased with you when he returns.
15-16 And remember why he is waiting. He is giving us time to get his message of salvation out to others. Our wise and beloved brother Paul has talked about these same things in many of his letters. Some of his comments are not easy to understand, and there are people who are deliberately stupid, and always demand some unusual interpretation—they have twisted his letters around to mean something quite different from what he meant, just as they do the other parts of the Scripture—and the result is disaster for them.
17 I am warning you ahead of time, dear brothers, so that you can watch out and not be carried away by the mistakes of these wicked men, lest you yourselves become mixed up too. 18 But grow in spiritual strength and become better acquainted with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be all glory and splendid honor, both now and forevermore. Good-bye.
Peter
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.