Ruth

The book of Ruth is a short story of four chapters, set 'in the days when the judges ruled' in Israel. In the Vulgate it comes after Judges; Jerome translated it from the Hebrew at Bethlehem in the late fourth century, as part of his new Latin version of the Old Testament.

Elimelech of Bethlehem moves with his wife Naomi and their two sons to Moab to escape a famine. The sons marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth, but all three men die. When Naomi decides to return home, Orpah stays behind, but Ruth refuses to leave her, with the words 'wherever you go, I will go; your people shall be my people, and your God my God'. In Bethlehem at harvest time Ruth gleans barley in the field of Boaz, a wealthy kinsman of Elimelech, who treats her kindly. On Naomi's advice she goes to him by night on the threshing floor and asks for his protection. Boaz settles the matter at the town gate with a closer kinsman who gives up his right of redemption, and he marries Ruth. Their son Obed becomes the grandfather of King David.

Ruth is admired for its narrative skill and its portrait of loyalty between two women of different peoples. It is short and simple, which makes the Vulgate text an ideal first reading in biblical Latin.