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Does God help those who help themselves? That may seem to be the message of the books of Esther and Ruth. Some think that Ruth’s attractiveness won over Naomi and Boaz, or that Esther’s bold faithfulness saved her people. But a closer reading shows an embittered Naomi to have abandoned the Promised Land and God’s people, and Esther to have become thoroughly assimilated to the culture and values...

It had not been Naomi’s idea for Ruth to come back to Israel with her. The last thing she wanted was one more mouth to feed and one more body to clothe. This was especially the case when that particular body would be a constant reminder of Naomi’s sin in abandoning the Promised Land with her husband years before in search of the greener fields of Moab. Ruth was also a constant reminder of Naomi’s sin in marrying her sons to foreign women, outsiders to the covenant. No, she
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