Naomi heard whispers in the marketplace: "The famine is over in Judah. The Lord has visited His people again."
Hope flickered like a dying candle.
She rose with Orpah and Ruth. "I'm going home," she said. "You should stay. There's nothing left for you with me."
Orpah wept and kissed Naomi goodbye, turning back toward the gods and soil of her birth.
But Ruth…
Ruth clung.
"Do not urge me to leave you," Ruth said, eyes burning with a fire that startled even Naomi. "Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people… and your God—my God."
A vow etched in eternity.
And so, together, they journeyed—two widows walking the dusty path to Bethlehem. Empty-handed, but not empty-hearted.