the biblical canon, known as the 

Ketuvim, or Writings. In the Hebrew

Bible, Ruth stands with the Song of
Solomon, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther; together they make
up the Megillot, five scrolls that are read at prescribed times on Jewish
religious festivals. Ruth is the festal scroll for Shavuot, the Feast of
Weeks, 50 days after Passover.

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biblical literature: Ruth

The  Book of Ruth is a beautiful short story about a number of good people,

particularly the Moabite great-grandmother of...

The book is named for its central character, a Moabite woman who
married the son of a Judaean couple living in Moab. After the death of
her husband, Ruth moved to Judah with her mother-in-law, Naomi,
instead of remaining with her own people. Ruth then became the wife
of Boaz, a wealthy kinsman of her former husband, and bore Obed,
who, according to the final verses of the book, was the grandfather
of David. This attempt to make Ruth an ancestor of David is
considered a late addition to a book that itself must be dated in the
late 5th or 4th century BC. Its author apparently wrote the story to
correct the particularism that characterized Judaism after
the Babylonian Exile and the rebuilding of the Temple of
Jerusalem (516 BC). The redactor who added the genealogy of David
(4:17–22) carried the correction one step further by making David the
great-grandson of a foreign woman.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica