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“Where You Go I Shall Go”Imitate Their Faith
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16-18. (a) How did Ruth demonstrate loyal love? (b) What can we learn from Ruth about loyal love? (See also the pictures of the two women.)
16 As she faced Naomi on that lonely road, Ruth’s heart was sure and clear. It swelled with love for Naomi—and for the God whom Naomi served. So Ruth spoke: “Do not plead with me to abandon you, to turn back from accompanying you; for where you go I shall go, and where you spend the night I shall spend the night. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I shall die, and there is where I shall be buried. May Jehovah do so to me and add to it if anything but death should make a separation between me and you.”—Ruth 1:16, 17.
17 Ruth’s words are remarkable—so much so that they have long outlived her, echoing down through some 30 centuries. They perfectly reveal a precious quality, loyal love. The love that Ruth felt was so strong and so loyal that she would stick with Naomi wherever she went. Only death could separate them. Naomi’s people would become her own people, for Ruth was ready to leave behind everything she knew in Moab—even the Moabite gods. Unlike Orpah, Ruth could wholeheartedly say that she wanted Naomi’s God, Jehovah, to be her own God as well.a
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“Where You Go I Shall Go”Imitate Their Faith
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a It is noteworthy that Ruth did not use only the impersonal title “God,” as many foreigners might; she also used God’s personal name, Jehovah. The Interpreter’s Bible comments: “The writer thus emphasizes that this foreigner is a follower of the true God.”
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