Elimelech, Mahlon, and Kilion: The Family Who Left Bethlehem. Before the story of Ruth and Naomi’s redemption could unfold, there was a family who walked away from the “House of Bread” in search of sustenance—and lost everything in the process. Elimelech, Mahlon, and Kilion remind us that life’s greatest famine is not the hunger of the body but the absence of faith.