Obedience to the Insignificant Has Significance
Leviticus 19:1-37
1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Speak to the whole Israelite
community and say to them:
You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.
3 You shall each revere his mother
and his father, and keep My sabbaths: I the Lord
am your God.
4 Do not turn to idols or make molten
gods for yourselves: I the Lord
am your God.
5 When you sacrifice an offering of
well-being to the Lord, sacrifice
it so that it may be accepted on your behalf. 6 It shall be eaten on the day
you sacrifice it, or on the day following; but what is left by the third day
must be consumed in fire. 7 If it should be eaten on the third day, it is an
offensive thing, it will not be acceptable. 8 And he who eats of it shall bear
his guilt, for he has profaned what is sacred to the Lord; that person shall be cut off from his kin.
9 When you reap the harvest of your
land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the
gleanings of your harvest. 10 You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather
the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the
stranger: I the Lord am your God.
11 You shall not steal; you shall not
deal deceitfully or falsely with one another. 12 You shall not swear falsely by
My name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord.
13 You shall not defraud your fellow.
You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you
until morning.
14 You shall not insult the deaf, or
place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
15 You shall not render an unfair
decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your
kinsman fairly. 16 Do not deal basely with your countrymen. Do not profit by the
blood of your fellow: I am the Lord.
17 You shall not hate your kinsfolk
in your heart. Reprove your kinsman but incur no guilt because of him. 18 You
shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your
fellow as yourself: I am the Lord.
19 You shall observe My laws.
You shall not let your cattle mate
with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; you
shall not put on cloth from a mixture of two kinds of material.
20 If a man has carnal relations with
a woman who is a slave and has been designated for another man, but has not
been redeemed or given her freedom, there shall be an indemnity; they shall
not, however, be put to death, since she has not been freed. 21 But he must
bring to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, as his guilt offering to the Lord, a ram of guilt offering. 22 With
the ram of guilt offering the priest shall make expiation for him before the Lord for the sin that he committed; and
the sin that he committed will be forgiven him.
23 When you enter the land and plant
any tree for food, you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it
shall be forbidden for you, not to be eaten. 24 In the fourth year all its
fruit shall be set aside for jubilation before the Lord; 25 and only in the fifth year may you use its
fruit—that its yield to you may be increased: I the Lord am your God.
26 You shall not eat anything with
its blood. You shall not practice divination or soothsaying. 27 You shall not
round off the side-growth on your head, or destroy the side-growth of your
beard. 28 You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any
marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.
29 Do not degrade your daughter and
make her a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry and the land be filled with
depravity. 30 You shall keep My sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary: I am the Lord.
31 Do not turn to ghosts and do not
inquire of familiar spirits, to be defiled by them: I the Lord am your God.
32 You shall rise before the aged and
show deference to the old; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
33 When a stranger resides with you
in your land, you shall not wrong him. 34 The stranger who resides with you
shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for
you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God.
35 You shall not falsify measures of
length, weight, or capacity. 36 You shall have an honest balance, honest
weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin.
I the Lord am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt. 37 You
shall faithfully observe all My laws and all My rules: I am the Lord.
Deuteronomy 24:1-22
1 A man takes a wife and possesses
her. She fails to please him because he finds something obnoxious about her,
and he writes her a bill of divorcement, hands it to her, and sends her away
from his house; 2 she leaves his household and becomes the wife of another man;
3 then this latter man rejects her, writes her a bill of divorcement, hands it
to her, and sends her away from his house; or the man who married her last
dies. 4 Then the first husband who divorced her shall not take her to wife
again, since she has been defiled—for that would be abhorrent to the Lord. You must not bring sin upon the
land that the Lord your God is
giving you as a heritage.
5 When a man has taken a bride, he
shall not go out with the army or be assigned to it for any purpose; he shall
be exempt one year for the sake of his household, to give happiness to the
woman he has married.
6 A handmill or an upper millstone
shall not be taken in pawn, for that would be taking someone’s life in pawn.
7 If a man is found to have kidnapped
a fellow Israelite, enslaving him or selling him, that kidnapper shall die;
thus you will sweep out evil from your midst.
8 In cases of a skin affection be
most careful to do exactly as the levitical priests instruct you. Take care to
do as I have commanded them. 9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the journey after you left
Egypt.
10 When you make a loan of any sort
to your countryman, you must not enter his house to seize his pledge. 11 You
must remain outside, while the man to whom you made the loan brings the pledge
out to you. 12 If he is a needy man, you shall not go to sleep in his pledge;
13 you must return the pledge to him at sundown, that he may sleep in his cloth
and bless you; and it will be to your merit before the Lord your God.
14 You shall not abuse a needy and
destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the
communities of your land. 15 You must pay him his wages on the same day, before
the sun sets, for he is needy and urgently depends on it; else he will cry to
the Lord against you and you will
incur guilt.
16 Parents shall not be put to death
for children, nor children be put to death for parents: a person shall be put
to death only for his own crime.
17 You shall not subvert the rights
of the stranger or the fatherless; you shall not take a widow’s garment in
pawn. 18 Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there;
therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.
19 When you reap the harvest in your
field and overlook a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it; it shall
go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow—in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all your
undertakings.
20 When you beat down the fruit of
your olive trees, do not go over them again; that shall go to the stranger, the
fatherless, and the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do
not pick it over again; that shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the
widow. 22 Always remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore
do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.
Ruth 2:1-23
1 Now Naomi had a kinsman on her
husband’s side, a man of substance, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was
Boaz.
2 Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “I
would like to go to the fields and glean among the ears of grain, behind
someone who may show me kindness.” “Yes, daughter, go,” she replied; 3 and off
she went. She came and gleaned in a field, behind the reapers; and, as luck
would have it, it was the piece of land belonging to Boaz, who was of
Elimelech’s family.
4 Presently Boaz arrived from
Bethlehem. He greeted the reapers, “The Lord
be with you!” And they responded, “The Lord
bless you!” 5 Boaz said to the servant who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose
girl is that?” 6 The servant in charge of the reapers replied, “She is a
Moabite girl who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. 7 She said,
‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the reapers.’ She has
been on her feet ever since she came this morning. She has rested but little in
the hut.”
8 Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen to me,
daughter. Don’t go to glean in another field. Don’t go elsewhere, but stay here
close to my girls. 9 Keep your eyes on the field they are reaping, and follow
them. I have ordered the men not to molest you. And when you are thirsty, go to
the jars and drink some of [the water] that the men have drawn.”
10 She prostrated herself with her
face to the ground, and said to him, “Why are you so kind as to single me out,
when I am a foreigner?”
11 Boaz said in reply, “I have been
told of all that you did for your mother-in-law after the death of your
husband, how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth and came
to a people you had not known before. 12 May the Lord reward your deeds. May you have a full recompense from
the Lord, the God of Israel,
under whose wings you have sought refuge!”
13 She answered, “You are most kind,
my lord, to comfort me and to speak gently to your maidservant—though I am not
so much as one of your maidservants.”
14 At mealtime, Boaz said to her,
“Come over here and partake of the meal, and dip your morsel in the vinegar.”
So she sat down beside the reapers. He handed her roasted grain, and she ate
her fill and had some left over.
15 When she got up again to glean,
Boaz gave orders to his workers, “You are not only to let her glean among the
sheaves, without interference, 16 but you must also pull some [stalks] out of
the heaps and leave them for her to glean, and not scold her.”
17 She gleaned in the field until
evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned—it was about an ephah of barley—18 and carried it back
with her to the town. When her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, and when
she also took out and gave her what she had left over after eating her fill, 19
her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work?
Blessed be he who took such generous notice of you!” So she told her
mother-in-law whom she had worked with, saying, “The name of the man with whom
I worked today is Boaz.”
20 Naomi said to her daughter-in-law,
“Blessed be he of the Lord, who
has not failed in His kindness to the living or to the dead! For,” Naomi
explained to her daughter-in-law, “the man is related to us; he is one of our
redeeming kinsmen.” 21 Ruth the Moabite said, “He even told me, ’stay close by
my workers until all my harvest is finished.’” 22 And Naomi answered her
daughter-in-law Ruth, “It is best, daughter, that you go out with his girls,
and not be annoyed in some other field.” 23 So she stayed close to the
maidservants of Boaz, and gleaned until the barley harvest and the wheat
harvest were finished. Then she stayed at home with her mother-in-law.
Ruth 4:1-22
1 Meanwhile, Boaz had gone to the
gate and sat down there. And now the redeemer whom Boaz had mentioned passed
by. He called, “Come over and sit down here, So-and-so!” And he came over and
sat down. 2 Then [Boaz] took ten elders of the town and said, “Be seated here”;
and they sat down.
3 He said to the redeemer, “Naomi,
now returned from the country of Moab, must sell the piece of land which
belonged to our kinsman Elimelech. 4 I thought I should disclose the matter to
you and say: Acquire it in the presence of those seated here and in the
presence of the elders of my people. If you are willing to redeem it, redeem!
But if you will not redeem, tell me, that I may know. For there is no one to
redeem but you, and I come after you.” “I am willing to redeem it,” he replied.
5 Boaz continued, “When you acquire the property from Naomi and from Ruth the
Moabite, you must also acquire the wife of the deceased, so as to perpetuate
the name of the deceased upon his estate.” 6 The redeemer replied, “Then I
cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own estate. You take over my
right of redemption, for I am unable to exercise it.”
7 Now this was formerly done in
Israel in cases of redemption or exchange: to validate any transaction, one man
would take off his sandal and hand it to the other. Such was the practice in
Israel. 8 So when the redeemer said to Boaz, “Acquire for yourself,” he drew
off his sandal. 9 And Boaz said to the elders and to the rest of the people,
“You are witnesses today that I am acquiring from Naomi all that belonged to
Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and Mahlon. 10 I am also acquiring
Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, as my wife, so as to perpetuate the name
of the deceased upon his estate, that the name of the deceased may not
disappear from among his kinsmen and from the gate of his home town. You are
witnesses today.”
11 All the people at the gate and the
elders answered, “We are. May the Lord
make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, both of whom
built up the House of Israel! Prosper in Ephrathah and perpetuate your name in
Bethlehem! 12 And may your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar bore to
Judah—through the offspring which the Lord
will give you by this young woman.”
13 So Boaz married Ruth; she became
his wife, and he cohabited with her. The Lord
let her conceive, and she bore a son. 14 And the women said to Naomi, “Blessed
be the Lord, who has not withheld
a redeemer from you today! May his name be perpetuated in Israel! 15 He will
renew your life and sustain your old age; for he is born of your
daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons.”
16 Naomi took the child and held it
to her bosom. She became its foster mother, 17 and the women neighbors gave him
a name, saying, “A son is born to Naomi!” They named him Obed; he was the
father of Jesse, father of David.
18 This is the line of Perez: Perez
begot Hezron, 19 Hezron begot Ram, Ram begot Amminadab, 20 Amminadab begot
Nahshon, Nahshon begot Salmon, 21 Salmon begot Boaz, Boaz begot Obed, 22 Obed
begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David. [1]