I got up in the morning to nurse my son, and there he was, ¹  dead! But when I examined him carefully in the morning, I realized it was not my baby.” ² 

Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? ¹  Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? ²  Even if mothers ³  were to forget, I could never forget you! ⁴ 

“Do I bring a baby to the birth opening and then not deliver it?” asks the Lord. “Or do I bring a baby to the point of delivery and then hold it back?” asks your God. ¹ 

When a woman gives birth, she has distress ¹  because her time ²  has come, but when her child is born, she no longer remembers the suffering because of her joy that a human being ³  has been born into the world. ⁴ 

The Lord said to Abraham, “Why ¹  did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really ²  have a child when I am old?’

She went on to say, ¹  “Who would ²  have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have given birth to a son for him in his old age!”

The woman became pregnant ¹  and gave birth to a son. When ²  she saw that ³  he was a healthy ⁴  child, she hid him for three months.

Indeed ¹  I am composed and quiet, ²  like a young child carried by its mother; ³  I am content like the young child I carry. ⁴ 

Danger awaits one who says ¹  to his father, “What in the world ²  are you fathering?” and to his mother, “What in the world are you bringing forth?” ³ 

The king of Babylon will become paralyzed with fear ¹  when he hears news of their coming. ²  Anguish will grip him, agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby. ³ 

This woman’s child suffocated ¹  during the night when she rolled ²  on top of him.

The real mother ¹  spoke up to the king, for her motherly instincts were aroused. ²  She said, “My master, give her the living child! Whatever you do, don’t kill him!” ³  But the other woman said, “Neither one of us will have him! Let them cut him in two!”

Look at them shake uncontrollably, ¹  like a woman writhing in childbirth. ² 

Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing their babies in those days!

Then Abraham bowed down with his face to the ground and laughed ¹  as he said to himself, ²  “Can ³  a son be born to a man who is a hundred years old? ⁴  Can Sarah ⁵  bear a child at the age of ninety?” ⁶ 

While she was giving birth, one child ¹  put out his hand, and the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.”

¹  “When you assist ²  the Hebrew women in childbirth, observe at the delivery: ³  If it is a son, kill him, ⁴  but if it is a daughter, she may live.” ⁵ 

His servants said to him, “What is this that you have done? While ¹  the child was still alive, you fasted and wept. Once the child was dead you got up and ate food!”

As when a pregnant woman gets ready to deliver and strains and cries out because of her labor pains, so were we because of you, O Lord.

“This is what Hezekiah says: ¹  ‘This is a day of distress, insults, ²  and humiliation, ³  as when a baby is ready to leave the birth canal, but the mother lacks the strength to push it through. ⁴