The One Year Bible TLB (102 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
A witness who tells the truth saves good men from being sentenced to death, but a false witness is a traitor.
May 6Now Naomi had an in-law there in Bethlehem who was a very wealthy man. His name was Boaz.
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One day Ruth said to Naomi, “Perhaps I can go out into the fields of some kind man to glean the free grain
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behind his reapers.”
And Naomi said, “All right, dear daughter. Go ahead.”
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So she did. And as it happened, the field where she found herself belonged to Boaz, this relative of Naomi’s husband.
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Boaz arrived from the city while she was there. After exchanging greetings with the reapers he said to his foreman, “Hey, who’s that girl over there?”
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And the foreman replied, “It’s that girl from the land of Moab who came back with Naomi.
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She asked me this morning if she could pick up the grains dropped by the reapers, and she has been at it ever since except for a few minutes’ rest over there in the shade.”
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Boaz went over and talked to her. “Listen, my child,” he said to her. “Stay right here with us to glean; don’t think of going to any other fields. Stay right behind my women workers; I have warned the young men not to bother you; when you are thirsty, go and help yourself to the water.”
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She thanked him warmly. “How can you be so kind to me?” she asked. “You must know I am only a foreigner.”
“Yes, I know,” Boaz replied, “and I also know about all the love and kindness you have shown your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you left your father and mother in your own land and have come here to live among strangers.
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May the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, bless you for it.”
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“Oh, thank you, sir,” she replied. “You are so good to me, and I’m not even one of your workers!”
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At lunchtime Boaz called to her, “Come and eat with us.”
So she sat with his reapers and he gave her food,
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more than she could eat.
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And when she went back to work again, Boaz told his young men to let her glean right among the sheaves without stopping her,
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and to snap off some heads of barley and drop them on purpose for her to glean, and not to make any remarks.
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So she worked there all day, and in the evening when she had beaten out the barley she had gleaned, it came to a whole bushel!
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She carried it back into the city and gave it to her mother-in-law, with what was left of her lunch.
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“So much!” Naomi exclaimed. “Where in the world did you glean today? Praise the Lord for whoever was so kind to you.” So Ruth told her mother-in-law all about it and mentioned that the owner of the field was Boaz.
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“Praise the Lord for a man like that! God has continued his kindness to us as well as to your dead husband!” Naomi cried excitedly. “Why, that man is one of our closest relatives!”
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“Well,” Ruth told her, “he said to come back and stay close behind his reapers until the entire field is harvested.”
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“This is wonderful!” Naomi exclaimed. “Do as he has said. Stay with his girls right through the whole harvest; you will be safer there than in any other field!”
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So Ruth did and gleaned with them until the end of the barley harvest, and then the wheat harvest too.
3:
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One day Naomi said to Ruth, “My dear, isn’t it time that I try to find a husband for you and get you happily married again?
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The man I’m thinking of is Boaz! He has been so kind to us and is a close relative. I happen to know that he will be winnowing barley tonight out on the threshing floor.
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Now do what I tell you—bathe and put on some perfume and some nice clothes and go on down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him see you until he has finished his supper.
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Notice where he lies down to sleep; then go and lift the cover off his feet and lie down there, and he will tell you what to do concerning marriage.”
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And Ruth replied, “All right. I’ll do whatever you say.”
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So she went down to the threshing floor that night and followed her mother-in-law’s instructions. After Boaz had finished a good meal, he lay down very contentedly beside a heap of grain and went to sleep. Then Ruth came quietly and lifted the covering off his feet and lay there.
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Suddenly, around midnight, he wakened and sat up, startled. There was a woman lying at his feet!
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“Who are you?” he demanded.
“It’s I, sir—Ruth,” she replied. “Make me your wife according to God’s law, for you are my close relative.”
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“Thank God for a girl like you!” he exclaimed. “For you are being even kinder to Naomi now than before. Naturally you’d prefer a younger man, even though poor. But you have put aside your personal desires.
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Now don’t worry about a thing, my child; I’ll handle all the details, for everyone knows what a wonderful person you are.
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But there is one problem. It’s true that I am a close relative, but there is someone else who is more closely related to you than I am.
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Stay here tonight, and in the morning I’ll talk to him, and if he will marry you, fine; let him do his duty; but if he won’t, then I will, I swear by Jehovah; lie down until the morning.”
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So she lay at his feet until the morning and was up early, before daybreak, for he had said to her, “Don’t let it be known that a woman was here at the threshing floor.”
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“Bring your shawl,” he told her. Then he tied up a bushel and a half of barley in it as a present for her mother-in-law and laid it on her back. Then she returned to the city.
“Well, what happened, dear?” Naomi asked her when she arrived home. She told Naomi everything and gave her the barley from Boaz, and mentioned his remark that she mustn’t go home without a present.
Then Naomi said to her, “Just be patient until we hear what happens, for Boaz won’t rest until he has followed through on this. He’ll settle it today.”
4:
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So Boaz went down to the marketplace
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and found the relative he had mentioned.
“Say, come over here,” he called to him. “I want to talk to you a minute.”
So they sat down together.
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Then Boaz called for ten of the chief men of the village and asked them to sit as witnesses.
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Boaz said to his relative, “You know Naomi, who came back to us from Moab. She is selling our brother Elimelech’s property.
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I felt that I should speak to you about it so that you can buy it if you wish, with these respected men as witnesses. If you want it,
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let me know right away, for if you don’t take it, I will. You have the first right to purchase it and I am next.”
The man replied, “All right, I’ll buy it.”
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Then Boaz told him, “Your purchase of the land from Naomi requires your marriage to Ruth so that she can have children to carry on her husband’s name and to inherit the land.”
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“Then I can’t do it,” the man replied. “For her son would become an heir to my property too;
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you buy it.”
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In those days it was the custom in Israel for a man transferring a right of purchase to pull off his sandal and hand it to the other party; this publicly validated the transaction.
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So, as the man said to Boaz, “You buy it for yourself,” he drew off his sandal.
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Then Boaz said to the witnesses and to the crowd standing around, “You have seen that today I have bought all the property of Elimelech, Chilion, and Mahlon, from Naomi,
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and that with it I have purchased Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Mahlon, to be my wife, so that she can have a son to carry on the family name of her dead husband.”
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And all the people standing there and the witnesses replied, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make this woman, who has now come into your home, as fertile as Rachel and Leah, from whom all the nation of Israel descended! May you be a great and successful man in Bethlehem,
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and may the descendants the Lord will give you from this young woman be as numerous and honorable as those of our ancestor Perez, the son of Tamar and Judah.”
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So Boaz married Ruth, and when he slept with her, the Lord gave her a son.
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And the women of the city said to Naomi, “Bless the Lord who has given you this little grandson; may he be famous in Israel.
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May he restore your youth and take care of you in your old age; for he is the son of your daughter-in-law who loves you so much, and who has been kinder to you than seven sons!”
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Naomi took care of the baby, and the neighbor women said, “Now at last Naomi has a son again!”
And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse and grandfather of King David.
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This is the family tree of Boaz, beginning with his ancestor Perez: Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nashon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David.
At the end of the two days’ stay he went on into Galilee. Jesus used to say, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own country!”
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But the Galileans welcomed him with open arms, for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen some of his miracles.
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46-47
In the course of his journey through Galilee he arrived at the town of Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. While he was there, a man in the city of Capernaum, a government official, whose son was very sick, heard that Jesus had come from Judea and was traveling in Galilee. This man went over to Cana, found Jesus, and begged him to come to Capernaum with him and heal his son, who was now at death’s door.
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Jesus asked,
“Won’t any of you believe in me unless I do more and more miracles?”
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The official pled, “Sir, please come now before my child dies.”
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Then Jesus told him,
“Go back home. Your son is healed!”
And the man believed Jesus and started home.
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While he was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that all was well—his son had recovered.
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He asked them when the lad had begun to feel better, and they replied, “Yesterday afternoon at about one o’clock his fever suddenly disappeared!”
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Then the father realized it was the same moment that Jesus had told him, “Your son is healed.” And the officer and his entire household believed that Jesus was the Messiah.
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This was Jesus’ second miracle in Galilee after coming from Judea.
He called for a famine on the land of Canaan, cutting off its food supply.
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Then he sent Joseph as a slave to Egypt to save his people from starvation.
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There in prison they hurt his feet with fetters and placed his neck in an iron collar
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until God’s time finally came—how God tested his patience!
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Then the king sent for him and set him free.
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He was put in charge of all the king’s possessions.
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At his pleasure he could imprison the king’s aides and teach the king’s advisors.
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Then Jacob (Israel) arrived in Egypt and lived there with his sons.
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In the years that followed, the people of Israel multiplied explosively until they were a greater nation than their rulers.
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At that point God turned the Egyptians against the Israelis; they hated and enslaved them.
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But God sent Moses as his representative, and Aaron with him,
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to call down miracles of terror upon the land of Egypt.
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They
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followed his instructions. He sent thick darkness through the land
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and turned the nation’s water into blood, poisoning the fish.
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Then frogs invaded in enormous numbers; they were found even in the king’s private rooms.
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When Moses spoke, the flies and other insects swarmed in vast clouds from one end of Egypt to the other.
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Instead of rain he sent down murderous hail, and lightning flashes overwhelmed the nation.
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Their grapevines and fig trees were ruined; all the trees lay broken on the ground.
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He spoke, and hordes of locusts came
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and ate up everything green, destroying all the crops.
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Then he killed the oldest child in each Egyptian home, their pride and joy—