opened it, ¹  and saw the child ²  – a boy, ³  crying! ⁴  – and she felt compassion ⁵  for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”

Then Elkanah went back home to Ramah. But the boy was serving the Lord under the supervision of ¹  Eli the priest.

Now the boy Samuel continued serving the Lord under Eli’s supervision. ¹  Word from the Lord was rare in those days; revelatory visions were infrequent.

Hadad, ¹  who was only a small boy at the time, escaped with some of his father’s Edomite servants and headed for Egypt. ² 

Take ¹  ten loaves of bread, some small cakes, and a container of honey and visit him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.”

So Jeroboam’s wife got up and went back to ¹  Tirzah. As she crossed the threshold of the house, the boy died.

Elijah took the boy, brought him down from the upper room to the house, and handed him to his mother. Elijah then said, “See, your son is alive!”

Now, run to meet her and ask her, ‘Are you well? Are your husband and the boy well?’” She told Gehazi, ¹  “Everything’s fine.”

Cursed be the man who made my father very glad when he brought him the news that a baby boy had been born to him! ¹ 

and they cast lots for my people. They traded ¹  a boy for a prostitute; they sold a little girl for wine so they could drink. ² 

But God heard the boy’s voice. ¹  The angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and asked her, “What is the matter, ²  Hagar? Don’t be afraid, for God has heard ³  the boy’s voice right where he is crying.

We said to my lord, ‘We have an aged father, and there is a young boy who was born when our father was old. ¹  The boy’s ²  brother is dead. He is the only one of his mother’s sons left, ³  and his father loves him.’

When I send a boy after them, I will say, “Go and find the arrows.” If I say to the boy, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; ¹  get them,’ then come back. For as surely as the Lord lives, you will be safe and there will no problem.

But God said to Abraham, “Do not be upset ¹  about the boy or your slave wife. Do ²  all that Sarah is telling ³  you because through Isaac your descendants will be counted. ⁴ 

So he ¹  said to his servants, “You two stay ²  here with the donkey while ³  the boy and I go up there. We will worship ⁴  and then return to you.” ⁵ 

“Do not harm the boy!” ¹  the angel said. ²  “Do not do anything to him, for now I know ³  that you fear ⁴  God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me.”

Reuben said to them, “Didn’t I say to you, ‘Don’t sin against the boy,’ but you wouldn’t listen? So now we must pay for shedding his blood!” ¹ 

Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me and we will go immediately. ¹  Then we will live ²  and not die – we and you and our little ones.

“So now, when I return to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us – his very life is bound up in his son’s life. ¹ 

When he sees the boy is not with us, ¹  he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hair of your servant our father in sorrow to the grave.