Quotes About Family

Now Abimelech son of Jerubbaal went to his motherís brothers at Shechem and said to them and to all the clan of his mother,

“Please ask all the leaders of Shechem, ëIs it better for you that seventy men, all the sons of Jerubbaal, rule over you, or just one man?í Remember that I am your own flesh and blood.”

And when his motherís brothers spoke all these words about him in the presence of all the leaders of Shechem, their hearts were inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, “He is our brother.”

He went to his fatherís house in Ophrah, and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerubbaal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerubbaal, survived, because he hid himself.

Now if you have acted faithfully and honestly in making Abimelech king, if you have done well by Jerubbaal and his family, and if you have done to him as he deserves—

for my father fought for you and risked his life to deliver you from the hand of Midian,

but you have risen up against my fatherís house this day and killed his seventy sons on a single stone, and you have made Abimelech, the son of his maidservant, king over the leaders of Shechem because he is your brother—

In this way God repaid the wickedness that Abimelech had done to his father in murdering his seventy brothers.

And Gileadís wife bore him sons who grew up, drove Jephthah out, and said to him, “You shall have no inheritance in our fatherís house, because you are the son of another woman.”

And when Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no son or daughter besides her.

As soon as Jephthah saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “No! Not my daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You have brought great misery upon me, for I have given my word to the LORD and cannot take it back.”

“My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me as you have said, for the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites.”

He had thirty sons, as well as thirty daughters whom he gave in marriage to men outside his clan; and for his sons he brought back thirty wives from elsewhere. Ibzan judged Israel seven years.

He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys. And he judged Israel eight years.

Now there was a man from Zorah named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, whose wife was barren and had no children.

So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” “I am,” he said.

So the angel of the LORD answered Manoah, “Your wife is to do everything I told her.

So he returned and told his father and mother, “I have seen a daughter of the Philistines in Timnah. Now get her for me as a wife.”

But his father and mother replied, “Canít you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me, for she is pleasing to my eyes.”

(Now his father and mother did not know this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines; for at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.)

Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Suddenly a young lion came roaring at him,

and the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

Then his father went to visit the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, as was customary for the bridegroom.

“I was sure that you thoroughly hated her,” said her father, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”