But the two children struggled with each other in her womb. So she went to ask the Lord about it. “Why is this happening to me?” she asked.

And the Lord told her, “The sons in your womb will become two nations. From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son.”

May the God of your father help you; may the Almighty bless you with the blessings of the heavens above, and blessings of the watery depths below, and blessings of the breasts and womb.

“At this point the priest must put the woman under oath by saying, ‘May the people know that the Lord’s curse is upon you when he makes you infertile, causing your womb to shrivel and your abdomen to swell.

Now may this water that brings the curse enter your body and cause your abdomen to swell and your womb to shrivel.’ And the woman will be required to say, ‘Yes, let it be so.’

If she has defiled herself by being unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings on the curse will cause bitter suffering. Her abdomen will swell and her womb will shrink, and her name will become a curse among her people.

He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!”

Curse that day for failing to shut my mother’s womb, for letting me be born to see all this trouble.

“Why wasn’t I born dead? Why didn’t I die as I came from the womb?

You guided my conception and formed me in the womb.

“‘Why, then, did you deliver me from my mother’s womb? Why didn’t you let me die at birth?

It would be as though I had never existed, going directly from the womb to the grave.

They conceive trouble and give birth to evil. Their womb produces deceit.”

For God created both me and my servants. He created us both in the womb.

“Who kept the sea inside its boundaries as it burst from the womb,

Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast.

But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.

Yes, you have been with me from birth; from my mother’s womb you have cared for me. No wonder I am always praising you!

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

the grave, the barren womb, the thirsty desert, the blazing fire.

O my son, O son of my womb, O son of my vows,

Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.

The Lord’s Servant Commissioned

Listen to me, all you in distant lands! Pay attention, you who are far away! The Lord called me before my birth; from within the womb he called me by name.

And now the Lord speaks— the one who formed me in my mother’s womb to be his servant, who commissioned me to bring Israel back to him. The Lord has honored me, and my God has given me strength.