So he got up and went to Zarephath. When he went through the city gate, there was a widow gathering wood. He called out to her, “Please give me a cup ¹  of water, so I can take a drink.”

Your officials are rebels, ¹  they associate with ²  thieves. All of them love bribery, and look for ³  payoffs. ⁴  They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁵  or defend the rights of the widow. ⁶ 

א (Alef) ^{1  2} Alas! ³  The city once full of people ⁴  now sits all alone! ⁵  The prominent ⁶  lady among the nations has become a widow! ⁷  The princess ⁸  who once ruled the provinces ⁹  has become a forced laborer!

“Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man ¹  must marry ²  the widow and father children ³  for his brother.’ ⁴ 

As he approached the town gate, a man ¹  who had died was being carried out, ²  the only son of his mother (who ³  was a widow ⁴ ), and a large crowd from the town ⁵  was with her.

They asked him, ¹  “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, that man ²  must marry ³  the widow and father children ⁴  for his brother. ⁵ 

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, they should first learn to fulfill their duty ¹  toward their own household and so repay their parents what is owed them. ²  For this is what pleases God. ³ 

But the widow who is truly in need, and completely on her own, ¹  has set her hope on God and continues in her pleas and prayers night and day.

As much as ¹  she exalted herself and lived in sensual luxury, ²  to this extent give her torment and grief because she said to herself, ³  ‘I rule as queen and am no widow; I will never experience grief!’

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until Shelah my son grows up.” For he thought, ¹  “I don’t want him to die like his brothers.” ²  So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

So she removed her widow’s clothes and covered herself with a veil. She wrapped herself and sat at the entrance to Enaim which is on the way to Timnah. (She did this because ¹  she saw that she had not been given to Shelah as a wife, even though he had now grown up.) ² 

but if a priest’s daughter is a widow or divorced, and she has no children so that she returns to live in ¹  her father’s house as in her youth, ²  she may eat from her father’s food, but no lay person may eat it.

Whenever you reap your harvest in your field and leave some unraked grain there, ¹  you must not return to get it; it should go to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow so that the Lord your God may bless all the work you do. ² 

But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she ¹  must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!”

He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, ¹  and his father was a craftsman in bronze from Tyre. He had the skill and knowledge ²  to make all kinds of works of bronze. He reported to King Solomon and did all the work he was assigned.

So now, listen to this, O one who lives so lavishly, ¹  who lives securely, who says to herself, ²  ‘I am unique! No one can compare to me! ³  I will never have to live as a widow; I will never lose my children.’ ⁴