Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we finished our ninth book of the Bible and we're rapidly closing in on 100 days in the word

so I think you should do something to celebrate if you know other people who are doing Bible recap, maybe you should get together and have a little party or something.

If kids can have a party for hitting 100 days in school, you can do it for hitting 100 days in the Bible.

Come on, this will serve you better than algebra

any day. No offense to the math teachers among us. We love you. You're invited to the party

too. Bring ice cream. Okay, let's drop in on Ruth's story. It takes place during the time of the

judges when all kinds of wickedness is filling the land of Israel. The book opens with a married

couple, Illimelimelik and Naomi, leaving their hometown, Bethlehem of Judah, to escape a famine.

They settle in Moab across the Jordan River, which is pagan territory.

We'll include a link to a map in today's show note so you can see where this is.

After Alemoeck and Naomi and their two sons get to Moab, the sons do the very thing Moses warned them against.

They marry women who worship other gods.

Eventually, Illimelek and his sons all die,

leaving Naomi and her Moabite daughters-in-law

behind defend for themselves.

Naomi is in dire straits because as a widow with no offspring, there's no way for her to be provided for,

and especially not in a foreign land that has no rules for providing for widows like Israel does.

Fortunately, she gets word that Bethlehem isn't in a famine anymore and she

packs her bags. She tells her pagan daughters in law to go back to their homes where

they can start over. Orpa goes back home, but Ruth makes a shocking decision. She attaches herself to a destitute, depressed

widow and leaves her country to move to a foreign land. She chooses the hard path. As she's making this commitment to

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