5 For we must consider also this: that, had the woman been faint hearted, as being their mother, she would have lamented over them, and perhaps might have spoken thus: (WEB) 6 “Ah! I am wretched and many times miserable, who having born seven sons, have become the mother of none. (WEB) 7 O seven useless childbirths, and seven profitless periods of labor, and fruitless givings of suck, and miserable nursings at the breast. (WEB)
4 Maccabees 16:5–7
Semantically similar passages
4 Maccabees 16:10–12
10 Ah, that I who had many and fair children, should be a lone widow full of sorrows! (WEB) 11 Nor, should I die, will I have a son to bury me.” But with such a lament as this, the holy and God-fearing mother wept for none of them. (WEB) 12 Nor did she divert any of them from death… (WEB)
2 Esdras 10:11–13
11 Who then should mourn more, she who has lost so great a multitude, or you, who are grieved but for one? (WEB) 12 But if you say to me, ‘My lamentation is not like the earth’s, for I have lost the fruit of my womb, which I brought forth with pains, and bare with sorrows… (WEB)
4 Maccabees 15:15–17
15 She saw her children’s flesh dissolving around the fire, and their extremities quivering on the ground, and the flesh of their heads dropped forward down to their beards, like masks. (WEB) 16 O you mother, who was tried at this time with bitterer pangs than those at bi… (WEB)
2 Baruch 10:15–17
15 For why should they bear in pain, Only to bury in grief? (2BA) 16 Or why, again, should mankind have sons? Or why should the seed of their kind again be named, Where this mother is desolate, And her sons are led into captivity? (2BA) 17 From this time forward speak not of beauty… (2BA)
2 Esdras 10:5–7
5 Then I left the reflections I was engaged in, and answered her in anger, (WEB) 6 “You most foolish woman, don’t you see our mourning, and what has happened to us? (WEB) 7 For Zion the mother of us all is full of sorrow, and much humbled. (WEB)
Baruch 4:31–33
31 Miserable are those who afflicted you and rejoiced at your fall. (WEB) 32 Miserable are the cities which your children served. Miserable is she who received your sons. (WEB) 33 For as she rejoiced at your fall and was glad of your ruin, so she will be grieved at her own desolati… (WEB)
2 Esdras 2:1–3
1 The Lord says, “I brought this people out of bondage. I gave them my commandments by my servants the prophets, whom they would not listen to, but made my counsels void. (WEB) 2 The mother who bore them says to them, ‘Go your way, my children, for I am a widow and fors… (WEB)
Job 39:15–17
15 She forgets that a foot may crush them, or a wild animal may trample them. 16 She treats her young harshly, as if not her own, with no concern that her labor was in vain. 17 For God has deprived her of wisdom; He has not endowed her with understanding.
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