² Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’^(A)

¹² They answered, “Yes, there he is just ahead of you. Hurry; he has come just now to the town because the people have a sacrifice today at the shrine.^(A)

²⁹ he said, ‘Let me go, for our family is holding a sacrifice in the city, and my brother has commanded me to be there. So now, if I have found favor in your sight, let me get away and see my brothers.’ For this reason he has not come to the king’s table.”

³⁴ Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”^[a]

Coming Persecutions

¹⁶ “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.^(A)

²⁶ then you shall say to them, ‘I was presenting my plea to the king not to send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.’ ”^{(A) 27} All the officials did come to Jeremiah and questioned him, and he answered them in the very words the king had commanded. So they stopped questioning him, for the conversation had not been overheard.^(B)

⁹ And he said, “How have I sinned, that you would hand your servant over to Ahab to kill me? ¹⁰ As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom to which my lord has not sent to seek you, and when they would say, ‘He is not here,’ he would require an oath of the kingdom or nation that they had not found you.^{(A) 11} But now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.’ ¹² As soon as I have gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you I know not where; so, when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have revered the Lord from my youth.^{(B) 13} Has it not been told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred of the Lord’s prophets fifty to a cave and provided them with bread and water?^{(C) 14} Yet now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here’; he will surely kill me.”

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