The Beloved to Her Lover: Oh, how I wish you were ¹  my little brother, ²  nursing at my mother’s breasts; if I saw ³  you outside, I could kiss you – surely ⁴  no one would despise me! ⁵ 

I would lead you and bring you to my mother’s house, the one who taught me. ¹  I would give you ²  spiced wine ³  to drink, ⁴  the nectar of my pomegranates. ⁵ 

for before the child knows how to cry out, ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria ¹  will be carried off by the king of Assyria.” ² 

“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 

Listen to me, you coastlands! ¹  Pay attention, you people who live far away! The Lord summoned me from birth; ²  he commissioned me when my mother brought me into the world. ³ 

“Before I formed you in your mother’s womb ¹  I chose you. ²  Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

No one will take any food to those who mourn for the dead to comfort them. No one will give them any wine to drink to console them for the loss of their father or mother.

I will force you and your mother who gave you birth into exile. You will be exiled to ¹  a country where neither of you were born, and you will both die there.

He sent it after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the palace officials, ¹  the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metal workers had been exiled from Jerusalem. ² 

¹ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem ²  for eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal ³  daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.

and say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.

Due to the noise ¹  caused by the king and his nobles, the queen mother ²  then entered the banquet room. She ³  said, “O king, live forever! Don’t be alarmed! Don’t be shaken!

Plead earnestly ¹  with your ²  mother (for ³  she is not my wife, and I am not her husband), so that ⁴  she might put an end to her adulterous lifestyle, ⁵  and turn away from her sexually immoral behavior. ⁶ 

Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, ¹  she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

As they came into the house and saw the child with Mary his mother, they bowed down ¹  and worshiped him. They opened their treasure boxes and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, ²  and myrrh. ³ 

And whoever has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much ¹  and will inherit eternal life.

And they began making fun of him. ¹  But he put them all outside ²  and he took the child’s father and mother and his own companions ³  and went into the room where the child was. ⁴ 

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, ¹  there is no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel

Then ¹  Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “Listen carefully: ²  This child ³  is destined to be the cause of the falling and rising ⁴  of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be rejected. ⁵ 

When ¹  his parents ²  saw him, they were overwhelmed. His ³  mother said to him, “Child, ⁴  why have you treated ⁵  us like this? Look, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” ⁶