12. May the Lord reward you for what you have done! May you receive a rich reward from the Lord God of Israel, under whose protection you have come for shelter.”
13. Ruth replied, “Sir, may your kindness to me continue. You have comforted me and reassured me, and I’m not even one of your own servants.”
14. When it was time to eat, Boaz told her, “Come here. Have some bread, and dip it into the sour wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he handed her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over.
15. When she got up to gather grain, Boaz ordered his servants, “Let her gather grain even among the bundles. Don’t give her any problems.
16. Even pull some grain out of the bundles and leave it for her to gather. Don’t give her a hard time about it.”
17. So Ruth gathered grain in the field until evening. Then she separated the grain from its husks. She had about half a bushel of barley.
18. She picked it up and went into the town, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gathered. Ruth also took out what she had left over from lunch and gave it to Naomi.
19. Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you gather grain today? Just where did you work? May the man who paid attention to you be blessed.”So Ruth told her mother-in-law about the person with whom she worked. She said, “The man I worked with today is named Boaz.”
20. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May the Lord bless him. The Lord hasn’t stopped being kind to people—living or dead.” Then Naomi told her, “That man is a relative of ours. He is a close relative, one of those responsible for taking care of us.”
21. Ruth, who was from Moab, told her, “He also said to me, ‘Stay with my younger workers until they have finished the harvest.’ ”
22. Naomi told her daughter-in-law Ruth, “It’s a good idea, my daughter, that you go out to the fields with his young women. If you go to someone else’s field, you may be molested.”
23. So Ruth stayed with the young women who were working for Boaz. She gathered grain until both the barley harvest and the wheat harvest ended. And she continued to live with her mother-in-law.