May the sovereign God grant you mercy before the man so that he may release your other brother and Benjamin! As for me, if I lose my children I lose them.”

Samuel said, “Just as your sword left women childless, so your mother will be the most bereaved among women!” Then Samuel hacked Agag to pieces there in Gilgal before the Lord.

Their bulls breed without fail; their cows calve and do not miscarry.

No woman will miscarry her young or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.

The Lord continued, “In every town in the land I will purge them like straw blown away by the wind. I will destroy my people. I will kill off their children. I will do so because they did not change their behavior.

“Suppose I were to send wild animals through the land and kill its children, leaving it desolate, without travelers due to the wild animals.

Give them, O Lord – what will you give them? Give them wombs that miscarry, and breasts that cannot nurse!

“I have been with you for the past twenty years. Your ewes and female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks.

Their father Jacob said to them, “You are making me childless! Joseph is gone. Simeon is gone. And now you want to take Benjamin! Everything is against me.”

I will send the wild animals against you and they will bereave you of your children, annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population so that your roads will become deserted.

The sword will make people childless outside, and terror will do so inside; they will destroy both the young man and the virgin, the infant and the gray-haired man.

The men of the city said to Elisha, “Look, the city has a good location, as our master can see. But the water is bad and the land doesn’t produce crops.”

ר (Resh) Look, O Lord! I am distressed; my stomach is in knots! My heart is pounding inside me. Yes, I was terribly rebellious! Out in the street the sword bereaves a mother of her children; Inside the house death is present.

I will send famine and wild beasts against you and they will take your children from you. Plague and bloodshed will overwhelm you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

I will lead people, my people Israel, across you; they will possess you and you will become their inheritance. No longer will you bereave them of their children.

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Because they are saying to you, “You are a devourer of men, and bereave your nation of children,”

Even if they raise their children, I will take away every last one of them. Woe to them! For I will turn away from them.

Then I will stop the plague from ruining your crops, and the vine will not lose its fruit before harvest,” says the Lord who rules over all.

Stay there until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I’ll send someone to bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”

He went out to the spring and threw the salt in. Then he said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or fail to produce crops.”