So Naomi returned to Bethlehem from the country of Moab, along with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabite woman. And they arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

"If a person consecrates to the LORD a portion of the field from his inheritance, then your valuation is to be based on its capacity for yielding a harvest. Each omer of barley is to be valued at 50 shekels of silver.

Then he turned them over to the custody of the Gibeonites, who hanged them on the mountain in the presence of the LORD. All seven of them died at the same time. They were executed during the first days of harvest, just as the barley began to be gathered in.

Be dismayed, you farmers! Cry aloud, you vintners, for the wheat and barley, because the harvest in your fields has been lost.