Naomi had a relative of her husband Elimelech, a worthy man named Boaz. Ruth asked permission to go to a field and glean behind someone who would show her favor. Naomi agreed. Ruth happened to come to the field belonging to Boaz.
Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and asked who the young woman was. His overseer said she was Ruth, the Moabite who had returned with Naomi, and that she had worked steadily since morning. Boaz told Ruth not to glean elsewhere, to remain with his women, and to drink from the water his workers had drawn. He had ordered the men not to touch her.
Ruth asked why he had shown favor to a foreign woman. Boaz said he had heard what she had done for Naomi after Naomi lost husband and sons, and how Ruth had left family and homeland for a people she had not known. He prayed that God would reward her for coming under God’s wings. At mealtime he gave her bread and roasted grain. He instructed his workers to let her glean among the sheaves and even pull out grain for her.
Ruth brought about an ephah of barley to Naomi. Naomi learned that she had gleaned with Boaz and said he was one of their redeemers. Ruth stayed with his workers through the barley and wheat harvests.
Naomi later told Ruth to wash, anoint herself, and go to the threshing floor after Boaz had finished eating and drinking. Ruth lay at his feet. At midnight Boaz woke and found her there. Ruth asked him to spread his garment over her because he was a redeemer. Boaz called her a worthy woman, but said there was a closer redeemer.
Boaz promised that if the closer man would not redeem, he himself would. Before Ruth left in the morning, he gave her six measures of barley. Naomi said that Boaz would not rest until the matter was settled.
At the town gate Boaz called the closer relative and ten elders. He presented Naomi’s land and said that acquiring it also meant taking Ruth as wife to preserve the dead man’s name. The closer relative declined lest he damage his own inheritance and gave his sandal to Boaz. Boaz declared before the witnesses that he had acquired what belonged to Elimelech and had taken Ruth, Mahlon’s widow, as his wife.
The witnesses blessed Ruth and Boaz. Boaz married Ruth, and she bore a son. The women told Naomi that the child would restore her life and sustain her in old age. Naomi took the child, and the neighbors named him Obed. Obed was father of Jesse, and Jesse father of David. The genealogy runs from Perez through Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David.