Quotes About Loss

Accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road leading back to the land of Judah.

Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your motherís home. May the LORD show you loving devotion, as you have shown to your dead and to me.

But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb to become your husbands?

Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons,

would you wait for them to grow up? Would you refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, it grieves me very much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.”

“Do not call me Naomi,” she replied. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has dealt quite bitterly with me.

I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? After all, the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me.”

The Philistines arrayed themselves against Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who struck down about four thousand men on the battlefield.

So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great—thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell.

The ark of God was captured, and Eliís two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

That same day a Benjamite ran from the battle line all the way to Shiloh, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head.

Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his gaze was fixed because he could not see.

“I have just come from the battle,” the man said to Eli. “I fled from there today.” “What happened, my son?” Eli asked.

The messenger answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are both dead, and the ark of God has been captured.”

Now Eliís daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and about to give birth. When she heard the news of the capture of Godís ark and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband, she collapsed and gave birth, for her labor pains overtook her.

As she was dying, the women attending to her said, “Do not be afraid, for you have given birth to a son!” But she did not respond or pay any heed.

And she named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel,” because the ark of God had been captured and her father-in-law and her husband had been killed.

“The glory has departed from Israel,” she said, “for the ark of God has been captured.”

So Saul passed through the hill country of Ephraim and then through the land of Shalishah, but did not find the donkeys. He and the servant went through the region of Shaalim, but they were not there. Then they went through the land of Benjamin, and still they did not find them.

So Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you.

But Samuel declared: “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the LORD at Gilgal.

And to the day of his death, Samuel never again visited Saul. Samuel mourned for Saul, and the LORD regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel.

He also put to the sword Nob, the city of the priests, with its men and women, children and infants, oxen, donkeys, and sheep.

When Samuel died, all Israel gathered to mourn for him; and they buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David set out and went down to the Wilderness of Paran.