Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I were even to have a husband tonight and also give birth to sons,

Then the king of Israel said, “It is hopeless! For the Lord has called these three kings to hand them over to Moab!”

Then she said, “Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not say, ‘Do not give me false hope’?”

Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, “This is hopeless, my master! What are we to do?”

For we are strangers before You, and temporary residents, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope.

Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.

The Jews Destroy Their Enemies

Now in the twelfth month (that is, the month Adar), on the thirteenth day, when the king’s command and edict were to be put into effect, on the day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, it turned out to the contrary so that the Jews themselves gained mastery over those who hated them.

Is your fear of God not your confidence, And the integrity of your ways your hope?

So the helpless has hope, And injustice has shut its mouth.

“Oh, that my request might come to pass, And that God would grant my hope!

The caravans of Tema looked, The travelers of Sheba hoped for them.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, And they come to an end without hope.

So are the paths of all who forget God; And the hope of the godless will perish,

Then you would trust, because there is hope; And you would look around and rest securely.

But the eyes of the wicked will fail, And there will be no escape for them; And their hope is to breathe their last.”

Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.

“For there is hope for a tree, When it is cut down, that it will sprout again, And its shoots will not fail.

Water wears away stones, Its torrents wash away the dust of the earth; So You destroy a man’s hope.

If I hope for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in the darkness;

Where then is my hope? And who looks at my hope?

He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; And He has uprooted my hope like a tree.

For what is the hope of the godless when he makes an end of life, When God requires his life?

For the needy will not always be forgotten, Nor the hope of the afflicted perish forever.

A horse is a false hope for victory; Nor does it rescue anyone by its great strength.

“And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.