To the woman He said: “I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Women, however, will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.

A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”

As a woman with child about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in Your presence, O LORD. We were with child; we writhed in pain; but we gave birth to wind. We have given no salvation to the earth, nor brought any life into the world.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time.

About that time, Judah left his brothers and settled near a man named Hirah, an Adullamite. There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua, and he took her as a wife and slept with her. So she conceived and gave birth to a son, and Judah named him Er. Again she conceived and gave birth to a son, and she named him Onan. Then she gave birth to another son and named him Shelah; it was at Chezib that she gave birth to him. . . .

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be unclean for seven days, as she is during the days of her menstruation. And on the eighth day the flesh of the boy’s foreskin is to be circumcised. The woman shall continue in purification from her bleeding for thirty-three days. She must not touch anything sacred or go into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are complete. If, however, she gives birth to a daughter, the woman will be unclean for two weeks as she is during her menstruation. Then she must continue in purification from her bleeding for sixty-six days. . . .

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and crying out in the pain and agony of giving birth.

A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.

In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which is translated as Dorcas), who was always occupied with works of kindness and charity.

And He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.