Now there came a time of famine while judges were ruling in the land of Israel. A man from Bethlehem of Judah, his wife, and his two sons left to live in the country of Moab.

And the name of the man [was] Elimelech, and the name of his wife [was] Naomi, and the name of his two sons [were] Mahlon and Kilion. [They were] Ephraimites from Bethlehem [in] Judah. And they went [to] the countryside of Moab and remained there.

Sometime later Naomi's husband Elimelech died, so she and her two sons were left alone.

May the Lord give you rest in the houses of your husbands. Then she gave them a kiss; and they were weeping bitterly.

And Naomi will say, Turn back, my daughters: wherefore will ye go with me? are yet to me sons in my bowels, and they were to you for husbands?

So go on back, my daughters! Be on your way! I'm too old to remarry. If I were to say that I'm hoping for a husband tonight and then also bore sons this very night,

Would ye tarry for them till they were grown? would ye stay for them from having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD is gone out against me.

Then again they were weeping; and Orpah gave her mother-in-law a kiss, but Ruth would not be parted from her.

So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?

And her mother-in-law said to her, Where did you take up the grain today, and where were you working? May a blessing be on him who gave such attention to you. And she gave her mother-in-law an account of where she had been working, and said, The name of the man with whom I was working today is Boaz.

Ruth stayed close to Boaz’s female servants and gathered grain until the barley and the wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

So then, [is] not Boaz our kinsman whose maidservants you were with? Look, he [is] winnowing the barley at the threshing floor tonight.

And then he said, "Blessed be thou in the LORD my daughter, for thou hast showed more goodness in the latter end, than at the beginning; inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether they were poor or rich.

During Israel's earlier history, all things concerning redeeming or changing inheritances were confirmed by a man taking off his sandal and giving it to the other party, thereby creating a public record in Israel.

And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem:

And the women who were her neighbours gave it a name, saying, Naomi has a child; and they gave him the name of Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.