So the Lord ¹  let him alone. (At that time ²  she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” referring to ³  the circumcision.)

“Whoever is naive, let him turn in here,” she says ¹  to those ²  who lack understanding. ³ 

“My portion is the Lord,” I have said to myself, ¹  so I will put my hope in him.

the grave, ¹  the barren womb, ²  land that is not satisfied with water, and fire that never says, “Enough!” ³ 

The Teacher says: I discovered this while trying to discover the scheme of things, item by item.

So Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her, “You are the God who sees me,” ¹  for she said, “Here I have seen one who sees me!” ² 

Did Abraham ¹  not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ²  ‘He is my brother.’ I have done this with a clear conscience ³  and with innocent hands!”

Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Look, I overheard your father tell your brother Esau,

So Leah became pregnant ¹  and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, ²  for she said, “The Lord has looked with pity on my oppressed condition. ³  Surely my husband will love me now.”

but Hannah did not go up with them. ¹  Instead she told her husband, “Once the boy is weaned, I will bring him and appear before the Lord, and he will remain there from then on.”

“Son of man, because Tyre ¹  has said about Jerusalem, ²  ‘Aha, the gateway of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me. I will become rich, ³  now that she ⁴  has been destroyed,’

For their mother has committed adultery; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, “I will seek out ¹  my lovers; ²  they are the ones who give me my bread and my water, my wool, my flax, my olive oil, and my wine. ³ 

I will destroy her vines and fig trees, about which she said, “These are my wages for prostitution ¹  that my lovers gave to me!” I will turn her cultivated vines and fig trees ²  into an uncultivated thicket, so that wild animals ³  will devour them.

Then she went and sat down by herself across from him at quite a distance, about a bowshot ¹  away; for she thought, ²  “I refuse to watch the child die.” ³  So she sat across from him and wept uncontrollably. ⁴ 

Then the king asked her, “What’s your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Hand over your son; we’ll eat him today and then eat my son tomorrow.’