Verse from Leviticus

“与你们一起寄居的外人，要看他像你们中间的本地人一样；你要爱他好象爱自己，因为你们在埃及地也曾作过寄居的人；我是耶和华你们的神。”

利未记 19:34 

“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

Leviticus 19:34 

The story of Ruth (a Moabitess) offers a moving illustration of “loving the foreigner.” The pagan nation of Moab was situated just east of the Dead Sea. The Moabites were descended from Moab, the son of Lot (Genesis 19:37). During the exodus and throughout the reigns of Saul and David, the Moabites were frequently at war with Israel.

In the time of the judges, Naomi and Elimelek and their sons settled in Moab to escape a famine in Israel (Ruth 1). During their stay, Elimelek died, the sons married Moabite women (Ruth and Orpah), and then the sons also died. With no one to care for them, Naomi and Ruth left Moab and returned to Bethlehem, where Ruth was a foreigner (who may have been despised because of her heritage).

When they arrived, “the barley harvest was beginning” (v. 22). As a widow, Ruth was allowed to gather the leftover grain after the harvesters had gone through. “As it turned out,” she ended in the field of Boaz, a relative of Elimelek’s (2:3). But it was no coincidence. Boaz’s kindness resulted in Ruth and his place in the ancestry of King David (and Jesus) (Matthew 1:5–16).

May we have God’s heart to love others as ourselves, remembering that we too are sojourners on this earth. Yet we have been loved as God’s people, treated as His own.