“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.

If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands and as the court allows. But if a serious injury results, then you must require a life for a life— eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, and stripe for stripe.

Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.

Children are indeed a heritage from the LORD, and the fruit of the womb is His reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. He will not be put to shame when he confronts the enemies at the gate.

For as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Later, Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD heard his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So Rebekah went to inquire of the LORD,

Your hands shaped me and altogether formed me. Would You now turn and destroy me? Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust? Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese? You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and loving devotion, and Your care has preserved my spirit.

Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands and as the court allows.

For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the bones are formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

Stay far away from a false accusation. Do not kill the innocent or the just, for I will not acquit the guilty.

The word of the LORD came to me, saying: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

Please do not let her be like a stillborn infant whose flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb.”

“These are the ordinances that you are to set before them: If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free without paying anything. If he arrived alone, he is to leave alone; if he arrived with a wife, she is to leave with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free. But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children; I do not want to go free,’ . . .

This is the word of the LORD, your Maker, who formed you from the womb and who will help you: “Do not be afraid, O Jacob My servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

Like a slug that dissolves in its slime, like a woman’s stillborn child, may they never see the sun.

“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the evil you will do to the Israelites,” Elisha replied. “You will set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little ones to pieces, and rip open their pregnant women.”

You shall not murder.

And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, that Israel might be gathered to Him—for I am honored in the sight of the LORD, and My God is My strength—

Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child, like an infant who never sees daylight?

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the Baby, who was lying in the manger.

The leech has two daughters: Give and Give. There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, ‘Enough!’: Sheol, the barren womb, land never satisfied with water, and fire that never says, ‘Enough!’

Children are indeed a heritage from the LORD, and the fruit of the womb is His reward.

For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well.

Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God’s plan of election might stand,

He exploited our people and oppressed our fathers, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die.

‘Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

Why then did You bring me from the womb? Oh, that I had died, and no eye had seen me! If only I had never come to be, but had been carried from the womb to the grave.

And this will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent.

If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands and as the court allows. But if a serious injury results, then you must require a life for a life—

Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

because he did not kill me in the womb so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb forever enlarged.

Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the aged, gather the children, even those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.

for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He shall never take wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb.

“Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” (which means, “God with us”).

When Herod saw that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was filled with rage. Sending orders, he put to death all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, according to the time he had learned from the Magi.

For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down; You are aware of all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, O LORD. You hem me in behind and before; You have laid Your hand upon me. . . .

And God spoke all these words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, . . .

Did not He who made me in the womb also make them? Did not the same One form us in the womb?

Now if the person is from one month to five years of age, then your valuation for the male shall be five shekels of silver, and for the female three shekels of silver.

Look, even Elizabeth your relative has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is in her sixth month.

And the Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their portion at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose that servant says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and he begins to beat the menservants and maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not anticipate. Then he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone with a skin disease, anyone who has a bodily discharge, and anyone who is defiled by a dead body. You must send away male and female alike; send them outside the camp so they will not defile their camp, where I dwell among them.” So the Israelites did this, sending such people outside the camp. They did just as the LORD had instructed Moses. And the LORD said to Moses, . . .

Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

Be indebted to no one, except to one another in love. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and any other commandments, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.

or because of these surpassingly great revelations. So to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on His name.’

Anyone who curses his father or mother must surely be put to death.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the originals, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and come up on Mount Sinai to present yourself before Me on the mountaintop. No one may go up with you; in fact, no one may be seen anywhere on the mountain—not even the flocks or herds may graze in front of the mountain.” So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the originals. He rose early in the morning, and taking the two stone tablets in his hands, he went up Mount Sinai as the LORD had commanded him. And the LORD descended in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed His name, the LORD. . . .

And the LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Or who makes the mute or the deaf, the sighted or the blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

This is what the Lord GOD says to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you will come to life.

Listen to Me, O islands; pay attention, O distant peoples: The LORD called Me from the womb; from the body of My mother He named Me.

The word of the LORD came to me, saying: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” “Ah, Lord GOD,” I said, “I surely do not know how to speak, for I am only a child!” But the LORD told me: “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ For to everyone I send you, you must go, and all that I command you, you must speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you,” declares the LORD. . . .

Are Your days like those of a mortal, or Your years like those of a man,

The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus.

“Which ones?” the man asked. Jesus answered, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness,

And the King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’

Rescue those being led away to death, and restrain those stumbling toward the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know about this,” does not He who weighs hearts consider it? Does not the One who guards your life know? Will He not repay a man according to his deeds?

This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants what must soon come to pass. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John, who testifies to everything he saw. This is the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and obey what is written in it, because the time is near. John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from Him who is and was and is to come, and from the seven Spirits before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and has released us from our sins by His blood, . . .

that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”

Keep watch over yourselves and the entire flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.

If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands and as the court allows. But if a serious injury results, then you must require a life for a life— eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

I will attach tendons to you and make flesh grow upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath within you so that you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”

As I looked on, tendons appeared on them, flesh grew, and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and tell the breath that this is what the Lord GOD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, so that they may live!” So I prophesied as He had commanded me, and the breath entered them, and they came to life and stood on their feet—a vast army.

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace, was pleased

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

The angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “It is true that you are barren and have no children; but you will conceive and give birth to a son. Now please be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, and not to eat anything unclean. For behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son. And no razor shall come over his head, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”

Now people were even bringing their babies to Jesus for Him to place His hands on them. And when the disciples saw this, they rebuked those who brought them.

And she gave birth to her firstborn, a Son. She wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem,

May this water that brings a curse enter your stomach and cause your belly to swell and your thigh to shrivel.’ Then the woman is to say, ‘Amen, Amen.’

But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So Rebekah went to inquire of the LORD,

Give them, O LORD—what will You give? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that dry up!

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.

These are what defile a man, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile him.”

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine flourishing within your house, your sons like olive shoots sitting around your table. In this way indeed shall blessing come to the man who fears the LORD. May the LORD bless you from Zion, that you may see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life,

Yet You brought me forth from the womb; You made me secure at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast upon You; from my mother’s womb You have been my God.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have gazed upon and touched with our own hands—this is the Word of life.

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

When the time came for Elizabeth to have her child, she gave birth to a son.

And the Child grew and became strong. He was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him.

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.