1Now Naomi had a kinsman to her husband, a mighty man of valor from the clan of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz.2Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, "Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after someone in whose sight I may find favor." She replied, "Go, my daughter."3So she went and entered the field and gleaned after the reapers. As it happened, she came to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.4Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the reapers: "The LORD be with you." They answered him, "May the LORD bless you."5Boaz asked the servant in charge of the reapers, "Whose young woman is this?"6The servant answered, "She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab."7She said, "Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the reapers." She came and has remained standing since morning until now, except for a short rest in the shelter.8Boaz said to Ruth, "Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field, and do not leave this one; stay close to my young women.9Keep your eyes on the field they are reaping and follow after them. I have charged the young men not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men draw."10She fell on her face, bowed to the ground, and said to him, "Why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?"11Boaz answered her, "All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me—how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people you did not know before.12May the LORD reward your work, and may your wages be full from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."13She said, "May I continue to find favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not one of your maidservants."14At mealtime Boaz said to her, "Come here and eat some bread; dip your piece in the vinegar." She sat beside the reapers, and he offered her roasted grain. She ate and was satisfied and left some.15When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, "Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her.16Also pull out for her some stalks from the bundles and leave them for her to glean, and do not rebuke her."17So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed what she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah of barley.18She carried it back to the city and showed her mother-in-law what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her the food she had left over after eating her fill.19Her mother-in-law asked her, "Where did you glean today, and where did you work? Blessed be the one who took notice of you." Ruth told her mother-in-law everything she had done with the man and added, "The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz."20Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead." She continued, "This man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers."21Ruth the Moabite replied, "He even said to me, 'Stay close to my young men until they have finished all my harvest.'"22Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, "It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, so that you will not be harmed in another field."23So Ruth stayed close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest, and she lived with her mother-in-law.