Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageThe kinsman-redeemer replied, "Then I can't do it—I would be putting my own inheritance at risk. You take my right of redemption. I'm not able to do it."
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GThe go'el said, "I cannot redeem it for myself—or I will damage my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I am unable to redeem it."
KJV
King James VersionAnd the kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: redeem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem it.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleThe kinsman-redeemer replied, “I cannot redeem it myself, or I would jeopardize my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption, because I cannot redeem it.”
Footnotes
The go'el's fear is practically sound: taking Ruth as wife and fathering a child would mean that child inherits the redeemed field in Elimelech's name, not the go'el's own. His existing estate and heirs would bear the cost of acquisition with no generational return. His refusal is legally defensible but covenantally hollow—precisely the contrast the narrator has been building against Boaz's chesed throughout the book. FOG uses "damage" (from שָׁחַת, "to ruin/corrupt") to preserve the force of his concern; FOG Message renders it as "putting my own inheritance at risk" for natural flow.
