Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

146 Praise the Lord! Yes, really praise him! ² I will praise him as long as I live, yes, even with my dying breath.

³ Don’t look to men for help; their greatest leaders fail; ⁴ for every man must die. His breathing stops, life ends, and in a moment all he planned for himself is ended. ⁵ But happy is the man who has the God of Jacob as his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God— ⁶ the God who made both earth and heaven, the seas and everything in them. He is the God who keeps every promise, ⁷ who gives justice to the poor and oppressed and food to the hungry. He frees the prisoners ⁸ and opens the eyes of the blind; he lifts the burdens from those bent down beneath their loads. For the Lord loves good men. ⁹ He protects the immigrants and cares for the orphans and widows. But he turns topsy-turvy the plans of the wicked.

¹⁰ The Lord will reign forever. O Jerusalem,^[a] your God is King in every generation! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

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.”

^21-22 But now God has shown us a different way to heaven^[a]—not by “being good enough” and trying to keep his laws, but by a new way (though not new, really, for the Scriptures told about it long ago). Now God says he will accept and acquit us—declare us “not guilty”—if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, by coming to Christ, no matter who we are or what we have been like. ²³ Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal; ²⁴ yet now God declares us “not guilty” of offending him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins.

²⁵ For God sent Christ Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to end all God’s anger against us. He used Christ’s blood and our faith as the means of saving us from his wrath.^[b] In this way he was being entirely fair, even though he did not punish those who sinned in former times. For he was looking forward to the time when Christ would come and take away those sins. ²⁶ And now in these days also he can receive sinners in this same way because Jesus took away their sins.

But isn’t this unfair for God to let criminals go free, and say that they are innocent? No, for he does it on the basis of their trust in Jesus who took away their sins.

²⁷ Then what can we boast about doing to earn our salvation? Nothing at all. Why? Because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds; it is based on what Christ has done and our faith in him. ²⁸ So it is that we are saved^[c] by faith in Christ and not by the good things we do.

²⁹ And does God save only the Jews in this way? No, the Gentiles, too, may come to him in this same manner. ³⁰ God treats us all the same; all, whether Jews or Gentiles, are acquitted if they have faith. ³¹ Well then, if we are saved by faith, does this mean that we no longer need obey God’s laws? Just the opposite! In fact, only when we trust Jesus can we truly obey him.