From there, Elisha went up to Bethel, and as he was walking up the road, a group of boys came out of the city and jeered at him, chanting, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” Then he turned around, looked at them, and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Suddenly two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.

It is better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly.

In the first year of the reign of Belshazzar over Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he lay on his bed. He wrote down the dream, and this is the summary of his account. Daniel declared: “In my vision in the night I looked, and suddenly the four winds of heaven were churning up the great sea. Then four great beasts came up out of the sea, each one different from the others: The first beast was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and given the mind of a man. Suddenly another beast appeared, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. So it was told, ‘Get up and gorge yourself on flesh!’ . . .

The beast I saw was like a leopard, with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.

Like a bear robbed of her cubs I will attack them, and I will tear open their chests. There I will devour them like a lion, like a wild beast would tear them apart.

He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, of the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.

David replied, “Your servant has been tending his father’s sheep, and whenever a lion or a bear came and carried off a lamb from the flock,

Even to your old age, I will be the same, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will sustain you and deliver you.