Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
My hand made all these things, and so they all came into being. This is the Lord’s declaration. I will look favourably on this kind of person: one who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at my word.
So all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered in Jerusalem within the three days. On the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people sat in the square at the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain.
Everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me, because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles, while I sat devastated until the evening offering.
The woman whose son was alive spoke to the king because she felt great compassion , for her son. ‘My lord, give her the living baby,’ she said, ‘but please don’t have him killed! ’ But the other one said, ‘He will not be mine or yours. Cut him in two! ’
When a woman is in labour, she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world.