Ask, I pray you, and see, is a male bringing forth? Wherefore have I seen every man, His hands on his loins, as a travailing woman, And all faces have been turned to paleness?
Therefore filled have been my loins `with' great pain, Pangs have seized me as pangs of a travailing woman, I have been bent down by hearing, I have been troubled by seeing.
What dost thou say, when He looketh after thee? And thou -- thou hast taught them `to be' over thee -- leaders for head? Do not pangs seize thee as a travailing woman?
For a voice as of a sick woman I have heard, Distress, as of one bringing forth a first-born, The voice of the daughter of Zion, She bewaileth herself, she spreadeth out her hands, `Wo to me now, for weary is my soul of slayers!'
Captured have been the cities, And the strongholds are caught, And the heart of the mighty of Moab Hath been in that day as the heart of a distressed woman.
Lo, as an eagle he cometh up, and flieth, And he spreadeth his wings over Bozrah, And the heart of the mighty of Edom hath been in that day, As the heart of a distressed woman!'
then the king's countenance hath changed, and his thoughts do trouble him, and the joints of his loins are loosed, and his knees are smiting one against another.
She is empty, yea, emptiness and waste, And the heart hath melted, And the knees have smitten together, And great pain `is' in all loins, And the faces of all of them have gathered paleness.
for when they may say, Peace and surety, then sudden destruction doth stand by them, as the travail `doth' her who is with child, and they shall not escape;