¹⁵ Will a woman give up the child at her breast, will she be without pity for the fruit of her body? yes, these may, but I will not let you go out of my memory.

²¹ Keep these things in mind, O Jacob; and you Israel, for you are my servant: I have made you; you are my servant; O Israel, I will not let you go out of my memory.

¹ When Israel was a child he was dear to me; and I took my son out of Egypt.

²⁸ As far as the good news is in question, they are cut off from God on account of you, but as far as the selection is in question, they are loved on account of the fathers.

²⁹ Because God's selection and his mercies may not be changed.

¹¹ If you, then, being evil, are able to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who make requests to him?

¹⁷ And they will be mine, says the Lord, in the day when I make them my special property; and I will have mercy on them as a man has mercy on his son who is his servant.

¹⁰ The hands of kind-hearted women have been boiling their children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

³ Even the beasts of the waste land have full breasts, they give milk to their young ones: the daughter of my people has become cruel like the ostriches in the waste land.

²⁰ Is Ephraim my dear son? is he the child of my delight? for whenever I say things against him, I still keep him in my memory: so my heart is troubled for him; I will certainly have mercy on him, says the Lord.

¹³ As a father has pity on his children, so the Lord has pity on his worshippers.

¹ Now when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she had all the rest of the seed of the kingdom put to death.

² But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, secretly took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, with the woman who took care of him, away from among the king's sons who were put to death, and put him in the bedroom; and they kept him safe from Athaliah, so that he was not put to death.

²⁸ And the king said to her, What is troubling you? And she said in answer, This woman said to me, Give your son to be our food today, and we will have my son tomorrow.

²⁹ So, boiling my son, we had a meal of him; and on the day after I said to her, Now give your son for our food; but she has put her son in a secret place.

²⁶ Then the mother of the living child came forward, for her heart went out to her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the child; do not on any account put it to death. But the other woman said, It will not be mine or yours; let it be cut in two.

²⁷ Then the king made answer and said, Give her the child, and do not put it to death; she is the mother of it.

³¹ Without knowledge, not true to their undertakings, unkind, having no mercy:

²⁹ Then you will take the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters for food;