for me to put it on, because I am a servant, and it hath a royal character. And Anna said, Leave me, and, I would not do thus, and, The Lord hath greatly humbled me. Perhaps some crafty person gave thee this, and thou hast come to make me partaker in thy sin. And Judith said, Why shall I curse thee, because the Lord hath closed thy womb, so as not to give thee fruit in Israel? And Anna was very grieved, and took off her mourning garments, and anointed her head, and put on her wedding garments, and about the ninth hour went down into her garden to walk, and she saw a laurel tree, and sat under it, and supplicated the Lord, saying, O God of our fathers, bless me, and hearken to my prayer, as thou didst bless the womb of Sarah, and gavest her a son, Isaac.[1]
CHAPTER III.
And as she looked towards heaven she saw a nest of sparrows in the laurel tree, and she made a lamentation in herself, saying, Woe is me; who begat me? and what womb bare me? For I have become a curse before the children of Israel, and I am reproached, and they revile me from the temple of the Lord. Woe is me; what am I like unto? I am not like the fowls of heaven, for even the fowls of
- ↑ Comp. 1 Sam. i. 9–18.
