⁷ Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared.

²¹ Saul thought, “Let me give her to him, that she may ^(A)be a snare for him ^(B)and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” Therefore Saul said to David a second time,^{[a] (C)}“You shall now be my son-in-law.”

The Woman and the Dragon

12 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman ^(A)clothed with ^(B)the sun, with ^(C)the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. ² She was pregnant and ^(D)was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. ³ And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great ^(E)red dragon, ^(F)with seven heads and ^(G)ten horns, and on his heads ^(H)seven diadems. ⁴ His tail swept down ^(I)a third of the stars of heaven and ^(J)cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child ^(K)he might devour it. ⁵ She gave birth to a male child, ^(L)one who is to rule^[a] all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was ^(M)caught up to God and to his throne,

⁵ Because Syria, with Ephraim and ^(A)the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, ⁶ “Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it^[a] for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,” ⁷ thus says the Lord God:

^10 (A)Come, ^(B)let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”