Ruth

Ruth is a short, luminous story set 'in the days when the judges ruled'. A famine drives an Israelite family to Moab; tragedy leaves Naomi widowed and childless, but her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth refuses to leave her: 'Where you go I will go... your people shall be my people, and your God my God' (1:16).

Back in Bethlehem, Ruth's loyalty and the kindness of Boaz, her kinsman-redeemer, lead to marriage and a child. The book ends with a genealogy revealing its quiet significance: Ruth the foreigner becomes the great-grandmother of King David, and so an ancestress of Jesus.