May the sovereign God ¹  grant you mercy before the man so that he may release ²  your other brother ³  and Benjamin! As for me, if I lose my children I lose them.” ⁴ 

Their father Jacob said to them, “You are making me childless! Joseph is gone. ¹  Simeon is gone. ²  And now you want to take ³  Benjamin! Everything is against me.”

“‘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,”

Then you will think to yourself, ¹  ‘Who bore these children for me? I was bereaved and barren, dismissed and divorced. ²  Who raised these children? Look, I was left all alone; where did these children come from?’”

Fire consumed their ¹  young men, and their ²  virgins remained unmarried. ³ 

I stay awake; ¹  I am like a solitary bird on a roof.

I ¹  am deprived ²  of peace; ³  I have forgotten what happiness ⁴  is.

“I will not abandon ¹  you as orphans, ²  I will come to you. ³ 

Stay there ¹  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. ²  Why should I lose both of you in one day?” ³ 

The Lord continued, ¹  “In every town in the land I will purge them like straw blown away by the wind. ²  I will destroy my people. I will kill off their children. I will do so because they did not change their behavior. ³ 

He must not defile himself as a husband among his people so as to profane himself. ¹ 

the blessing of the dying man descended on me, ¹  and I made the widow’s heart rejoice; ² 

Then Naomi’s two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, also died. ¹  So the woman was left all alone – bereaved of her two children ²  as well as her husband!

Your teeth are like a flock of newly-shorn sheep coming up from the washing place; ¹  each of them has a twin, and not one of them is missing.

Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing; each has its twin; not one of them is missing.

Yet the children born during your time of bereavement will say within your hearing, ‘This place is too cramped for us, ¹  make room for us so we can live here.’ ² 

So let their children die of starvation. Let them be cut down by the sword. ¹  Let their wives lose their husbands and children. Let the older men die of disease ²  and the younger men die by the sword in battle.

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.

Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea ¹  says this, O fortress of the sea: “I have not gone into labor or given birth; I have not raised young men or brought up young women.” ² 

I will attack them like a bear robbed of her cubs – I will rip open their chests. I will devour them there like a lion – like a wild animal would tear them apart.