The greatest thing any
mother can do is to give her child away.
TWO
PROSTITUE MOTHERS
1 Kings 3:16-27
Two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. One of them said, "My lord, this woman and
I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. The third
day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there
was no one in the house but the two of us. "During the night this woman's
son died because she lay on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and
took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her
breast and put her dead son by my breast. The next morning, I got up to nurse
my son — and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning
light, I saw that it wasn't the son I had borne." The other
woman said, "No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours." But the first one insisted, "No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine."
And so they argued before the king. The
king said, "This one says, 'My son is alive and your son
is dead,' while that one says, 'No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.'" Then the king said, "Bring me a sword." So they brought a sword for the king. He then gave an order: "Cut
the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other." The woman
whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the
king, "Please, my
lord, give her the living baby! Don't kill him!" But the other said, "Neither
I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!" Then the king gave his ruling: "Give the living
baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother."
I Samuel 1:1-2:11
There was a
certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose
name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of
Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives;
one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah
had none. Year after year this man went up from his town
to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and
Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord. Whenever the day came for Elkanah to
sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all
her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he
gave a double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her
womb. And because the Lord had closed
her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah
went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and
would not eat. 8
Elkanah her husband would say to her, "Hannah,
why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean
more to you than ten sons?" Once when they had finished eating and
drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on a chair
by the doorpost of the Lord's temple.
In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord. And she
made a vow, saying, "O Lord Almighty, if you
will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your
servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days
of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head." As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was
praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli
thought she was drunk and said to her, "How
long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine." "Not so, my lord," Hannah replied, "I am a
woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring
out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have
been praying here out of my great anguish and grief." Eli answered, "Go in peace, and may the
God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him." She said, "May your servant find
favor in your eyes." Then she went
her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast. Early the next
morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their
home at Ramah. Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her.
So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named
him Samuel, saying, "Because I asked the Lord
for him." When the man Elkanah went up
with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill
his vow, Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, "After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before
the Lord, and he will live there always." "Do what seems best to you," Elkanah her
husband told her "Stay here until you have
weaned him; only may the Lord make good his word." So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned
him. After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along
with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought
him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. When they had slaughtered the bull,
they brought the boy to Eli, and she said to him, "As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here
beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord has
granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his
whole life he will be given over to the Lord." And he worshiped the Lord there.
2 Then Hannah
prayed and said: "My heart rejoices in the
Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance. "There is no one holy like the Lord; there
is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. "Do not keep talking so proudly or let
your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows, and by him
deeds are weighed. "The bows of the
warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. Those who
were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry hunger no
more. She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many
sons pines away. "The Lord brings
death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles
and he exalts. He raises the poor from
the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and
has them inherit a throne of honor. "For the foundations of the earth are
the Lord's; upon them he has set the world.
He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in
darkness. "It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the
Lord will be shattered. He will thunder against them from heaven; the Lord will
judge the ends of the earth. "He will give strength to his king and exalt
the horn of his anointed." Then Elkanah
went home to Ramah, but the boy ministered before the Lord under Eli the
priest.
Moses
Exodus 1
These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob,
each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and
Naphtali; Gad and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all;
Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph
and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and
multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled
with them. Then a new king, who did not
know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
"Look," he said to his people, "the
Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly
with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will
join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country." So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor,
and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more
they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came
to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives
bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the
fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly. The king of
Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on
the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her
live." The midwives, however, feared
God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys
live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?" The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew
women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the
midwives arrive." So God was kind to the
midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because
the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. Then Pharaoh gave
this order to all his people: "Every boy
that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."
Exodus 2:1-13 Now a man of
the house of Levi married a Levite woman,
and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he
was a fine child, she hid him for three months.
But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him
and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it
among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile
to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the
basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was
crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of
the Hebrew babies," she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall
I go and
get one of the
Hebrew
women to nurse the baby for you?" "Yes, go," she answered. And the
girl went and got the baby's mother.
Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take
this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older,
she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses,
saying, "I drew him out of the
water." One day, after Moses had grown
up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard
labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing
this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the
sand.
Jesus
Luke 2:21-40 On the
eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name
the angel had given him before he had been conceived. When the time of their
purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary
took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law
of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the
Lord"), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law
of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons." Now there was a man in Jerusalem called
Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of
Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the
Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Moved
by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the
child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him
in his arms and praised God, saying: "Sovereign
Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes
have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a
light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."
The child's father and mother marveled at what
was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in
Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many
hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too." There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the
tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years
after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never
left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to
them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to
all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. When Joseph and
Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to
Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he
was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.
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