Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons—

“Did I ask you for a son, my lord?” she said. “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?”

We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.

Then Shekaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel.

On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the edict commanded by the king was to be carried out. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them.

Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?

So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.

“Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for,

“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?

The caravans of Tema look for water, the traveling merchants of Sheba look in hope.

“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope.

Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless.

You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety.

But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; their hope will become a dying gasp.”

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.

“At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.

as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy a person’s hope.

If the only home I hope for is the grave, if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness,

where then is my hope— who can see any hope for me?

He tears me down on every side till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree.

For what hope have the godless when they are cut off, when God takes away their life?

Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness.

Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering.

But God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish.

No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame, but shame will come on those who are treacherous without cause.