O My people! Children are their oppressors,
And women rule over them.
O My people! Your leaders lead you astray
And confuse (destroy, swallow up) the direction of your paths.

And in that day seven women will take hold of one man, saying, “We will eat our own food and wear [and provide] our own clothes; only let us be called by your name; take away our shame [of being unmarried].”

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Listen carefully, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will call his name Immanuel (God with us).

Rejoice and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,
For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

They [of Babylon] will be shocked and terrified,
Pains and anguish will grip them;
They will be in pain like a woman in childbirth.
They will stare aghast and horrified at one another,
Their faces aflame [from the effects of the unprecedented warfare].

In that day the Egyptians will become like [helpless] women, and they will tremble and be frightened because of the waving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which He is going to wave over them.

Therefore [continues Isaiah] my loins are filled with anguish;
Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in childbirth;
I am so bent and bewildered that I cannot hear, I am so terrified that I cannot see.

As a woman with child approaches the time to give birth,
She is in pain and struggles and cries out in her labor,
So we were before You, O Lord.

When its branches are dry, they are broken off;
The women come and make a fire with them.
For they are not a people of understanding,
Therefore He who made them will not have compassion on them,
And He who created them will not be gracious to them.

Rise up, you women who are carefree,
And hear my voice,
You confident and unsuspecting daughters!
Listen to what I am saying.

In little more than a year
You will tremble [with anxiety], you unsuspecting and complacent women;
For the vintage has ended,
And the harvest will not come.

Tremble, you women who are carefree;
Tremble with fear, you complacent ones!
Strip, undress and wear sackcloth on your waist [in grief],

“I [the Lord] have been silent for a long time,
I have been still and restrained Myself.
Now I will moan like a woman in labor,
I will both gasp and pant.

“Woe (judgment is coming) to him who says to a father, ‘What are you fathering?’
Or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’”

[The Lord answered] “Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.

“For the Lord has called you,
Like a wife who has been abandoned, grieved in spirit,
And like a wife [married] in her youth when she is [later] rejected and scorned,”
Says your God.

“Because he who blesses himself on the earth
Will bless himself by the God of truth and faithfulness;
And he who swears [an oath] on the earth
Will swear by the God of truth and faithfulness;
Because the former troubles are forgotten,
And because they are hidden from My sight.