barren women

¹Give praise, you who are barren and unable to conceive. Sing praise and make a joyful noise, you who have not given birth. For many are the children of the desolate, more so than of her who has a husband, says the Lord. ²Enlarge the place of your tent and extend the skins of your tabernacles, unsparingly. Lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes. ³For you shall extend to the right and to the left. And your offspring shall inherit the nations, and you shall inhabit the desolate cities. ⁴Do not be afraid! For you will not be confounded, and you will not blush. And you will not be put to shame, because you shall forget the confusion of your youth, and you shall no longer remember the disgrace of your widowhood. ⁵For the One who made you will rule over you. The Lord of hosts is his name. And your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, will be called the God of all the earth. ⁶For the Lord has called you, like a woman forsaken and mourning in spirit, and like a wife rejected in her youth, said your God.

⁹He causes a barren woman to live in a house, as the joyful mother of sons.

²⁹For behold, the days will arrive in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the breasts that have not nursed.’

²¹And Isaac beseeched the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. And he heard him, and he gave conception to Rebekah.

¹¹By faith also, Sarah herself, being barren, received the ability to conceive offspring, even though she was past that age in life. For she believed him to be faithful, who had promised.

³Behold, the inheritance of the Lord is sons, the reward is the fruit of the womb. ⁴Like arrows in the hand of the powerful, so are the sons of those who have been cast out. ⁵Blessed is the man who has filled his desire from these things. He will not be confounded when he speaks to his enemies at the gate.

³Your wife is like an abundant vine on the sides of your house. Your sons are like young olive trees surrounding your table. ⁴Behold, so will the man be blessed who fears the Lord. ⁵May the Lord bless you from Zion, and may you see the good things of Jerusalem, all the days of your life. ⁶And may you see the sons of your sons. Peace be upon Israel.

⁷And they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they both had become advanced in years.

²⁶There will not be fruitless or barren ones in your land. I will fill up the number of your days.

³¹But the Lord, seeing that he despised Leah, opened her womb, but her sister remained barren.

¹⁶Hell, and the mouth of the womb, and a land that is not filled with water. And truly, fire never says, ‘Enough.’

¹⁵God said also to Abraham: “Your wife Sarai, you shall not call Sarai, but Sarah. ¹⁶And I will bless her, and from her I will give you a son, whom I will bless, and he will be among the nations, and the kings of the peoples will rise from him.”

¹Then Rachel, discerning that she was infertile, envied her sister, and so she said to her husband, “Give me children, otherwise I will die.”