Ruth and Naomi: Where You Go, I Will Go

The famine drives a man named Elimelech from Bethlehem to Moab with his wife Naomi and their two sons. In Moab, the sons marry Moabite women — Orpah and Ruth. Then disaster: Elimelech dies. Both sons die. Three widows are left with nothing.

Naomi hears that the Lord has visited his people and given them food. She sets out to return to Bethlehem and urges both daughters-in-law to return to their mothers' houses — to find new husbands, new security, new lives. Orpah, weeping, kisses her mother-in-law and goes back. Ruth will not leave.

Naomi presses her: look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods. Go with her. And Ruth says what has been said at ten thousand wedding ceremonies since, though it was first spoken by a widow to a widow on a dusty road:

Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.

They arrive in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Naomi is recognized by the townspeople — who are stirred by her return — but she tells them not to call her Naomi (pleasant) but Mara (bitter), for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with her.

Ruth goes to glean in the fields, the provision the law makes for the poor. She gleans in the field of Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi's dead husband. Boaz notices her, asks about her, and orders his workers to leave extra grain for her and not to rebuke her. He blesses her: May the Lord repay you for what you have done. A full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.

Through Naomi's shrewd guidance, Ruth approaches Boaz as a kinsman-redeemer. He negotiates the redemption at the city gate, marries Ruth, and she bears a son named Obed. The women of Bethlehem say to Naomi: Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer. May his name be renowned in Israel. Obed will be the grandfather of David. A Moabite woman becomes the ancestor of Israel's greatest king.