Ruth was a Moabite woman. She was a descendent of Lot's son, Moab (Lot was the nephew of Abraham who got into some trouble in Sodom and Gomorrah), but Moab's descendents did not worship the God of Abraham. They were pagans who worshiped a god by the name of Chemosh (and probably other gods as well).
Ruth, however, married into an Israelite family when she took as her husband Mahlon, one of the sons of Elimelech and Naomi who had come to Moab to escape a famine. Many people would have considered Mahlon's marriage to Ruth to be unwise at best and perhaps even sinful. Israelites were often warned against marrying pagan women, for their wives could draw them away from the worship of the one true God and into pagan rites.
Ruth had not been married very long, though, when she became a widow. Mahlon's brother, Chilion, also died, leaving Orpah, another Moabite, as his widow. The brothers' father passed on as well. Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah were left on their own.
Naomi told her daughters-in-law to return to their people. She would not bind them to herself. They were young, and there was still a chance for them to marry again and have children. Orpah went, but Ruth would not. In the short time she had spent with her new family, Ruth had found love and truth. Ruth was already devoted to her mother-in-law, and she refused to leave Naomi to fend for herself. Instead, she would take the Israelites as her own people, and she would accept God as her own God.
The two women traveled back to Bethlehem, the family's home town, where although she didn't know it, Ruth was about to embark on a new adventure that would one day make her the direct ancestor of Jesus Christ, God Incarnate.
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