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Ruth 2

2. Ruth Meets Boaz

¹ Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.

    ² And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.”

   Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” ³ So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.

    ⁴ Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The LORD be with you!”

   “The LORD bless you!” they answered.

    ⁵ Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?”

    ⁶ The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. ⁷ She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”

    ⁸ So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. ⁹ Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”

    ¹⁰ At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”

    ¹¹ Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. ¹² May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

    ¹³ “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.”

    ¹⁴ At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”

   When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. ¹⁵ As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. ¹⁶ Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”

    ¹⁷ So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. That is, probably about 30 pounds or about 13 kilograms ¹⁸ She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.

    ¹⁹ Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!”

   Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.

    ²⁰ “The LORD bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers. The Hebrew word for guardian-redeemer is a legal term for one who has the obligation to redeem a relative in serious difficulty (see Lev. 25:25-55).”

    ²¹ Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’”

    ²² Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.”

    ²³ So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

Luke 20:1-8

20. Parables and Teachings

¹ One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. ² “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?”

    ³ He replied, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me: ⁴ John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin?”

    ⁵ They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ ⁶ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.”

    ⁷ So they answered, “We don’t know where it was from.”

    ⁸ Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

The Parable of the Tenants

   

Psalm 104:1-18

104. Psalm 104

¹ Praise the LORD, my soul.

   LORD my God, you are very great;
   you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

    ² The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment;
   he stretches out the heavens like a tent
    ³ and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
   and rides on the wings of the wind.
⁴ He makes winds his messengers, Or angels
   flames of fire his servants.

    ⁵ He set the earth on its foundations;
   it can never be moved.
⁶ You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
   the waters stood above the mountains.
⁷ But at your rebuke the waters fled,
   at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
⁸ they flowed over the mountains,
   they went down into the valleys,
   to the place you assigned for them.
⁹ You set a boundary they cannot cross;
   never again will they cover the earth.

    ¹⁰ He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
   it flows between the mountains.
¹¹ They give water to all the beasts of the field;
   the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹² The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
   they sing among the branches.
¹³ He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
   the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
¹⁴ He makes grass grow for the cattle,
   and plants for people to cultivate—
   bringing forth food from the earth:
¹⁵ wine that gladdens human hearts,
   oil to make their faces shine,
   and bread that sustains their hearts.
¹⁶ The trees of the LORD are well watered,
   the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
¹⁷ There the birds make their nests;
   the stork has its home in the junipers.
¹⁸ The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
   the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.