The king asked the woman about it, and she gave him the details. ¹  The king assigned a eunuch to take care of her request and ordered him, ²  “Give her back everything she owns, as well as the amount of crops her field produced from the day she left the land until now.”

Now he was acting as the guardian ¹  of Hadassah ²  (that is, Esther), the daughter of his uncle, for neither her father nor her mother was alive. ³  This young woman was very attractive and had a beautiful figure. ⁴  When her father and mother died, Mordecai had raised her ⁵  as if she were his own daughter.

This young woman pleased him, ¹  and she found favor with him. He quickly provided her with her cosmetics and her rations; he also provided her with the seven specially chosen ²  young women who were from the palace. He then transferred her and her young women to the best quarters in the harem. ³ 

At the end of the twelve months that were required for the women, ¹  when the turn of each young woman arrived to go to King Ahasuerus – for in this way they had to fulfill their time of cosmetic treatment: six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with perfume and various ointments used by women –

I discovered this: ¹  More bitter than death is the kind of ²  woman ³  who is like a hunter’s snare; ⁴  her heart is like a hunter’s net and her hands are like prison chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is captured by her.

“Shout for joy, O barren one who has not given birth! Give a joyful shout and cry out, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one are more numerous than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.

You may feel as secure as a bird nesting in the cedars of Lebanon. But oh how you ¹  will groan ²  when the pains of judgment come on you. They will be like those of a woman giving birth to a baby. ³ 

Ask yourselves this and consider it carefully: ¹  Have you ever seen a man give birth to a baby? Why then do I see all these strong men grabbing their stomachs in pain like ²  a woman giving birth? And why do their faces turn so deathly pale?

“So now the Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, ¹  asks, ‘Why will you do such great harm to yourselves? Why should every man, woman, child, and baby of yours be destroyed from the midst of Judah? Why should you leave yourselves without a remnant?

So the Lord ¹  will hand the people of Israel ²  over to their enemies ³  until the time when the woman in labor ⁴  gives birth. ⁵  Then the rest of the king’s ⁶  countrymen will return to be reunited with the people of Israel. ⁷ 

Now ¹  while Jesus ²  was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, reclining at the table, ³  a woman came with an alabaster jar ⁴  of costly aromatic oil ⁵  from pure nard. After breaking open the jar, she poured it on his head.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” Because she ¹  thought he was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him.”

Now ¹  the dragon’s ²  tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them to the earth. Then ³  the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born.

But ¹  the woman was given the two wings of a giant eagle so that she could fly out into the wilderness, ²  to the place God ³  prepared for her, where she is taken care of – away from the presence of the serpent – for a time, times, and half a time. ⁴ 

So ¹  the dragon became enraged at the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her children, ²  those who keep ³  God’s commandments and hold to ⁴  the testimony about Jesus. ⁵  (12:18) And the dragon ⁶  stood ⁷  on the sand ⁸  of the seashore. ⁹ 

These words of Ish-bosheth really angered Abner and he said, “Am I the head of a dog that belongs to Judah? This very day I am demonstrating ¹  loyalty to the house of Saul your father and to his relatives ²  and his friends! I have not betrayed you into the hand of David. Yet you have accused me of sinning with this woman today! ³ 

“All the servants of the king and the people of the king’s provinces know that there is only one law applicable ¹  to any man or woman who comes uninvited to the king in the inner court – that person will be put to death, unless the king extends to him the gold scepter, permitting him to be spared. ²  Now I have not been invited to come to the king for some thirty days!”