Therefore my loins are filled with anguish; pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in labour. I was distressed when I heard it; I was troubled when I saw it.
Therefore thus said יהוה, who ransomed Aḇraham, concerning the house of Ya‛aqoḇ, “Ya‛aqoḇ is no longer put to shame, no longer does his face grow pale.
For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labour, the distress as of her who brings forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Tsiyon! She bewails herself, she spreads out her hands, saying, “Woe to me, for my being faints because of killers!”
“Qeriyoth shall be captured, and the strongholds seized. And the heart of the mighty men in Mo’aḇ on that day shall be like the heart of a woman in labour.
See, like an eagle he flies up, and spreads his wings over Botsrah. And the heart of the mighty men of Eḏom in that day shall be like the heart of a woman in her pain.
“The sovereign of Baḇel has heard the report about them, and his hands became weak. Distress has taken hold of him, pain like that of a woman in labour.
Then the sovereign’s colour changed, and his thoughts alarmed him, so that the joints of his hips were loosened and his knees knocked against each other.
She is empty, even emptiness and waste! And the heart has melted, and the knees have knocked together, and much pain is in all loins, and all their faces have become flushed.