Ruth
4
- Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate
and sat there. When the kinsman-redeemer he had mentioned came along, Boaz
said, "Come over here, my friend, and sit down." So he went over
and sat down.
- Boaz took ten of the elders of the town
and said, "Sit here," and they did so.
- Then he said to the kinsman-redeemer, "Naomi,
who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to
our brother Elimelech.
- I thought I should bring the matter to your
attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here
and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do
so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right
to do it except you, and I am next in line." "I will redeem it,"
he said.
- Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy
the land from Naomi and from Ruth the Moabitess, you acquire the dead man's
widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property."
- At this, the kinsman-redeemer said, "Then
I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself.
I cannot do it."
- (Now in earlier times in Israel, for the
redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his
sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions
in Israel.)
- So the kinsman-redeemer said to Boaz, "Buy
it yourself." And he removed his sandal.
- Then Boaz announced to the elders and all
the people, "Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all
the property of Elimelech, Kilion and Mahlon.
- I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess,
Mahlon's widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with
his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or
from the town records. Today you are witnesses !"
- Then the elders and all those at the gate
said, "We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who is coming into
your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel.
May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.
- Through the offspring the LORD gives you
by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore
to Judah."
- So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.
Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth
to a son.
- The women said to Naomi: "Praise be
to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May
he become famous throughout Israel!
- He will renew your life and sustain you
in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better
to you than seven sons, has given him birth."
- Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her
lap and cared for him.
- The women living there said, "Naomi
has a son." And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the
father of David.
- This, then, is the family line of Perez:
Perez was the father of Hezron,
- Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father
of Amminadab,
- Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon
the father of Salmon,
- Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father
of Obed,
- Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the
father of David.
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