² But Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.”

The Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’

¹² “He is,” they answered. “He’s ahead of you. Hurry now; he has just come to our town today, for the people have a sacrifice^(A) at the high place.^(B)

²⁹ He said, ‘Let me go, because our family is observing a sacrifice^(A) in the town and my brother has ordered me to be there. If I have found favor in your eyes, let me get away to see my brothers.’ That is why he has not come to the king’s table.”

³⁴ “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

¹⁶ “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.^(A) Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.^(B)

²⁶ then tell^(A) them, ‘I was pleading with the king not to send me back to Jonathan’s house^(B) to die there.’”

²⁷ All the officials did come to Jeremiah and question him, and he told them everything the king had ordered him to say. So they said no more to him, for no one had heard his conversation with the king.

⁹ “What have I done wrong,” asked Obadiah, “that you are handing your servant over to Ahab to be put to death? ¹⁰ As surely as the Lord your God lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to look^(A) for you. And whenever a nation or kingdom claimed you were not there, he made them swear they could not find you. ¹¹ But now you tell me to go to my master and say, ‘Elijah is here.’ ¹² I don’t know where the Spirit^(B) of the Lord may carry you when I leave you. If I go and tell Ahab and he doesn’t find you, he will kill me. Yet I your servant have worshiped the Lord since my youth. ¹³ Haven’t you heard, my lord, what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord? I hid a hundred of the Lord’s prophets in two caves, fifty in each, and supplied them with food and water. ¹⁴ And now you tell me to go to my master and say, ‘Elijah is here.’ He will kill me!”

¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I^(A) that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”