אֵם

…and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

…though from my youth I reared him as would a father, and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow—

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.

Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.

I paced about as for my friend or brother; I was bowed down with grief, like one mourning for his mother.

You sit and malign your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.

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

I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother’s sons,

I have leaned on You since birth; You pulled me from my mother’s womb. My praise is always for You.

May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and the sin of his mother never be blotted out.

He settles the barren woman in her home as a joyful mother to her children. Hallelujah!

Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

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

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.

When I was a son to my father, tender and the only child of my mother,

My son, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

The proverbs of Solomon: A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother.

A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish man despises his mother.

He who assaults his father or evicts his mother is a son who brings shame and disgrace.

Whoever curses his father or mother, his lamp will be extinguished in deepest darkness.

Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

May your father and mother be glad, and may she who gave you birth rejoice!

He who robs his father or mother, saying, “It is not wrong,” is a companion to the man who destroys.

A rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.

There is a generation of those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers.

As for the eye that mocks a father and scorns obedience to a mother, may the ravens of the valley pluck it out and young vultures devour it.

These are the words of King Lemuel—the burden that his mother taught him:

As a man came from his mother’s womb, so he will depart again, naked as he arrived. He takes nothing for his labor to carry in his hands.

Do not stare because I am dark, for the sun has gazed upon me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me a keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have neglected.

I had just passed them when I found the one I love. I held him and would not let go until I had brought him to my mother’s house, to the chamber of the one who conceived me.

Come out, O daughters of Zion, and gaze at King Solomon, wearing the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding—the day of his heart’s rejoicing.

…but my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the favorite of the mother who bore her. The maidens see her and call her blessed; the queens and concubines sing her praises.

O that you were to me like a brother who nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I found you outdoors, I would kiss you, and no one would despise me.

I would lead you and bring you to the house of my mother who taught me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the nectar of my pomegranates.

Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? I roused you under the apple tree; there your mother conceived you; there she travailed and brought you forth.

For before the boy knows how to cry ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

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.

This is what the LORD says: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors did I sell you? Look, you were sold for your iniquities, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.

As a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you, and you will be consoled over Jerusalem.”

I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. I will bring a destroyer at noon against the mothers of young men. I will suddenly bring upon them anguish and dismay.

Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and conflict in all the land. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.

For this is what the LORD says concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and the mothers who bore them, and the fathers who fathered them in this land:

No food will be offered to comfort those who mourn the dead; not even a cup of consolation will be given for the loss of a father or mother.

Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me never be blessed.

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

I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another land, where neither of you were born—and there you both will die.

…your mother will be greatly ashamed; she who bore you will be disgraced. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.