Blind guides! You strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel! ¹ 

Wild donkeys stand on the hilltops and pant for breath like jackals. Their eyes are strained looking for food, because there is none to be found.” ¹ 

He ¹  saw them straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. As the night was ending, ²  he came to them walking on the sea, ³  for ⁴  he wanted to pass by them. ⁵ 

As when a pregnant woman gets ready to deliver and strains and cries out because of her labor pains, so were we because of you, O Lord.

We were pregnant, we strained, we gave birth, as it were, to wind. ¹  We cannot produce deliverance on the earth; people to populate the world are not born. ² 

They panic – cramps and pain seize hold of them like those of a woman who is straining to give birth. They look at one another in astonishment; their faces are flushed red. ¹ 

Twist and strain, ¹  Daughter Zion, as if you were in labor! For you will leave the city and live in the open field. You will go to Babylon, but there you will be rescued. There the Lord will deliver ²  you from the power ³  of your enemies.

Brothers and sisters, ¹  I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: ²  Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead,

My eyes grow tired as I wait for your deliverance, ¹  for your reliable promise to be fulfilled. ² 

If you do this thing, and God so commands you, ¹  then you will be able ²  to endure, ³  and all these people ⁴  will be able to go ⁵  home ⁶  satisfied.” ⁷ 

My eyes grow tired as I wait for your promise to be fulfilled. ¹  I say, ²  “When will you comfort me?”

What does a man acquire from all his labor and from the anxiety that accompanies his toil on earth? ¹ 

As ¹  they were still staring into the sky while he was going, suddenly ²  two men in white clothing stood near them

with this goal in mind, ¹  I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God ²  in Christ Jesus.

Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it. ¹ 

The Lord who commands armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain. ¹  At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine – tender meat and choicest wine. ² 

My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. ¹  They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it. They will be disappointed in their harvests ²  because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger. ³ 

All these strong ones ¹  are scattering; they have sought permission to go and walk about over the earth.” The Lord had said, “Go! Walk about over the earth!” So they are doing so.

So ¹  when I could bear it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter somehow tempted you and our toil had proven useless.

Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” He pushed hard ¹  and the temple collapsed on the rulers and all the people in it. He killed many more people in his death than he had killed during his life. ²