If you're looking for a high-level scripting language for small projects that you keep to yourself, Ruby is the obvious alternative to Python. Lua not so much - it's fine when embedded but doesn't have the ecosystem for standalone use.

However, if you want to make programs for others to download and use, I'd recommend a language that can be compiled into easily-distributable binaries. As long as the overhead of a garbage collector is acceptable, Go is the clear favourite here.