“Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.”

“As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”

How can the king of Israel ridicule himself, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”

“Here comes that dreamer!”

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

“Did God tell you not to eat fruit from any tree in the garden?”

“Give me children, or I’ll die!”

Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

Bring me a sword… Cut the living child in two and give half to one woman and half to the other.”

“Lazy, that’s what you are—lazy! That is why you keep saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks.”