And the woman whose son was living spoke to the sovereign, for she was overcome with compassion for her son. And she said, “O my master, give her the living child, and by no means kill him!” But the other said, “Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him.”
Then all the men of Yehuḏah and Binyamin gathered at Yerushalayim within three days. It was the ninth new moon, on the twentieth of the new moon. And all the people sat in the open space of the House of Elohim, trembling because of the matter and because of showers of rain.
Then all those who trembled at the words of the Elohim of Yisra’ĕl gathered to me, because of the trespass of the exiles, and I sat astonished until the evening offering.
“And all these My hand has made, and all these that exist,” declares יהוה. “Yet to such a one I look: on him who is poor and bruised of spirit, and who trembles at My Word.
“The woman has grief when she is in labour, because her hour has come, but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the affliction, for joy that a man was born into the world.
So that, my beloved, as you always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much rather in my absence – work out your own deliverance with fear and trembling,
But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his tender affections from him, how does the love of Elohim stay in him?