As a woman with child, when she draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain and crieth out in her pangs: so are we become in thy presence, O Lord.
A woman, when she is in labour, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.
And shall be broken. Gripings and pains shall take hold of them: they shall be in pain as a woman in labour. Every one shall be amazed at his neighbour: their countenances shall be as faces burnt.
For when they shall say, peace and security; then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as the pains upon her that is with child, and they shall not escape.
Therefore are my loins filled with pain: anguish hath taken hold of me, as the anguish of a woman in labour. I fell down at the hearing of it: I was troubled at the seeing of it.
Ask ye, and see if a man bear children? Why then have I seen every man with his hands on his loins, like a woman in labour, and all faces are turned yellow?
For I have heard the voice as of a woman in travail, anguishes as of a woman in labor of a child. The voice of the daughter of Sion, dying away, spreading her hands: Woe is me, for my soul hath fainted because of them that are slain.
And they said to him: Thus saith Ezechias: This day is a day of tribulation and of rebuke and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.
To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee.