So Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law is returning to her people and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law back home!”

During the time of the judges there was a famine in the land of Judah. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah went to live as a resident foreigner in the region of Moab, along with his wife and two sons.

(Now this used to be the customary way to finalize a transaction involving redemption in Israel: A man would remove his sandal and give it to the other party. This was a legally binding act in Israel.)

Boaz asked his servant in charge of the harvesters, “To whom does this young woman belong?”

So Naomi returned, accompanied by her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth, who came back with her from the region of Moab. (Now they arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.)

Naomi then said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, “It is good, my daughter, that you should go out to work with his female servants. That way you will not be harmed, which could happen in another field.”

Again they wept loudly. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung tightly to her.

and she returned to her mother-in-law.When Ruth returned to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “How did things turn out for you, my daughter?” Ruth told her about all the man had done for her.

So Ruth went and gathered grain in the fields behind the harvesters. Now she just happened to end up in the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

In the middle of the night he was startled and turned over. Now he saw a woman lying beside him!

So she decided to return home from the region of Moab, accompanied by her daughters-in-law, because while she was living in Moab she had heard that the Lord had shown concern for his people, reversing the famine by providing abundant crops.

So she gathered grain in the field until evening. When she threshed what she had gathered, it came to about thirty pounds of barley!

So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law had instructed her to do.

May the Lord enable each of you to find security in the home of a new husband!” Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept loudly.

At that time, Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, “My daughter, I must find a home for you so you will be secure.

She said, “He gave me these sixty pounds of barley, for he said to me, ‘Do not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’”

The village women said to Naomi, “May the Lord be praised because he has not left you without a guardian today! May he become famous in Israel!

All the people who were at the gate and the elders replied, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is entering your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the house of Israel! May you prosper in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem.

Now as she and her two daughters-in-law began to leave the place where she had been living to return to the land of Judah,

The servant in charge of the harvesters replied, “She’s the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the region of Moab.