They returned and reported to Joshua, ¹  “Don’t send the whole army. ²  About two or three thousand men are adequate to defeat Ai. ³  Don’t tire out the whole army, for Ai is small.” ⁴ 

Then David approached the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to go with him, ¹  those whom they had left at the Wadi Besor. They went out to meet David and the people who were with him. When David approached the people, he asked how they were doing.

In fact, ¹  I hear a cry like that of a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like that of a woman giving birth to her first baby. It is the cry of Daughter Zion ²  gasping for breath, reaching out for help, ³  saying, “I am done in! ⁴  My life is ebbing away before these murderers!”

So Esau said to Jacob, “Feed ¹  me some of the red stuff – yes, this red stuff – because I’m starving!” (That is why he was also called ²  Edom.) ³ 

If you do this thing, and God so commands you, ¹  then you will be able ²  to endure, ³  and all these people ⁴  will be able to go ⁵  home ⁶  satisfied.” ⁷ 

You must not walk in the statutes of the nation ¹  which I am about to drive out before you, because they have done all these things and I am filled with disgust against them.

Then they traveled from Mount Hor by the road to the Red Sea, ¹  to go around the land of Edom, but the people ²  became impatient along the way.

but then they made a stand in the middle of that area. They defended it ¹  and defeated the Philistines; the Lord gave them a great victory. ² 

If ¹  I have sinned – what have I done to you, ²  O watcher of men? ³  Why have you set me as your target? ⁴  Have I become a burden to you? ⁵ 

They have prepared a net to trap me; ¹  I am discouraged. ²  They have dug a pit for me. ³  They will fall ⁴  into it! (Selah)

The Beloved to Her Lover: “I have already taken off my robe – must I put it on again? I have already washed my feet – must I soil them again?”

They will pass through the land ¹  destitute and starving. Their hunger will make them angry, ²  and they will curse their king and their God ³  as they look upward.

(9:1) I wish I had a lodging place in the desert where I could spend some time like a weary traveler. ¹  Then I would desert my people and walk away from them because they are all unfaithful to God, a congregation ²  of people that has been disloyal to him. ³ 

When ¹  he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless, ²  like sheep without a shepherd.

If I send them home hungry, they will faint on the way, and some of them have come from a great distance.”

While he was still speaking, someone from the synagogue ruler’s ¹  house came and said, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the teacher any longer.”

Therefore, since we have this ministry, just as God has shown us mercy, ¹  we do not become discouraged. ² 

Toward this goal ¹  I also labor, struggling according to his power that powerfully ²  works in me.

For the one who enters God’s ¹  rest has also rested from his works, just as God did from his own works.

Through the window she looked; Sisera’s mother cried out through the lattice: ‘Why is his chariot so slow to return? Why are the hoofbeats of his chariot-horses ¹  delayed?’