Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
God’s Reward to the Righteous
20 The Lord will reward me because I am righteous;
because my hands are clean he will restore me;
21 because I have kept the ways of the Lord,
and I have not wickedly departed from my God;
22 because all his judgments were always before me,
and I did not cast off his statutes.
23 I was upright[a] before him,
and I kept myself from iniquity.
24 So the Lord restored me according to my righteousness,
because my hands were clean in his sight.
25 To the holy, you show your gracious love,
to the upright, you show yourself upright;
26 to the pure, you show yourself pure,
and to the morally corrupt, you appear to be perverse.
27 Indeed, you deliver the oppressed,[b]
but you bring down those who exalt themselves
in their own eyes.
28 For you, Lord, make my lamp shine;
my God enlightens my darkness.
29 With your help[c] I will run through an army,
with help from[d] my God I leap over walls.
30 As for God, his way is upright;[e]
the word of God is pure;
he is a shield to all those who take refuge in him.
Boaz the Benefactor
15 After she had left to glean, Boaz commanded his servants,[a] “Allow her to glean also among the cut sheaves, and don’t taunt her. 16 One other thing[b]—drop some handfuls[c] deliberately, leaving them for her so she can gather it. And don’t bother her.” 17 So Ruth[d] gathered grain out in the field until dusk, and then threshed what she had gathered—about a week’s supply[e] of barley. 18 She picked up her grain[f] and went back to town.
Her mother-in-law noticed how much Ruth[g] had gleaned and had brought back from what was left over from her lunch. 19 So her mother-in-law quizzed her, “Where did you glean today? Where, precisely, did you work? May the one who took notice of you be blessed.”
So Ruth told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked. She said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.”
20 Naomi replied, “May the one who hasn’t abandoned his gracious love to the living or to the dead be blessed by the Lord.” Naomi added, “This man is closely related to us, our related redeemer,[h] as a matter of fact!”
21 Then Ruth the Moabite woman added, “He also told me ‘Stay close to my young men until they have completed my entire harvest.’”
22 Naomi responded to her daughter-in-law Ruth, “It is prudent, my daughter, for you to go out with his women servants, so someone won’t attack you in another field.” 23 So Ruth[i] continued to stay close to the young women who worked for Boaz, gathering grain until both the barley and wheat harvests were complete, all the while living with her mother-in-law.
17 Do not pay anyone back evil for evil, but[a] focus your thoughts on what is right in the sight of all people. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live in peace with all people. 19 Do not take revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God’s[b] wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me. I will pay them back, declares the Lord.”[c] 20 But “if your enemy is hungry, feed him. For if he is thirsty, give him a drink. If you do this, you will pile burning coals on his head.”[d] 21 Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.
Love One Another
8 Do not owe anyone anything—except to love one another. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the Law. 9 For the commandments, “You must not commit adultery; you must not murder; you must not steal; you must not covet,”[a] and every other commandment are summed up in this statement: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love never does anything that is harmful to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the Law.
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