It is but lost labour, that I smite your children, for they receive not my correction. Your own sword destroyeth your prophets, like a devouring lion.

For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

I hear a cry like a woman in labor,
a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child.
The cry of Daughter Zion gasping for breath,
stretching out her hands:
Woe is me, for my life is weary
because of the murderers!

We have heard about it,
and we are discouraged.
Distress has seized us—
pain like a woman in labor.

What will you say when he sets over you-- and you have taught them--allies as head over you? Will not labor pains take hold of you, like a woman giving birth?

ye shall bear no burden also out of your houses in the Sabbath: Ye shall do no labour therein, but hallow the Sabbath, as I commanded your fathers.

And I have given all the strength of this city, And all its labour, and all its precious things, Yea, all the treasures of the kings of Judah I do give into the hand of their enemies, And they have spoiled them, and taken them, And have brought them into Babylon.

Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

"'Sure to be judged is the king who builds his palace using injustice and treats people unfairly while adding its upper rooms. He makes his countrymen work for him for nothing. He does not pay them for their labor.

Inhabitants of Lebanon, nestled among the cedars, how you will groan when labor pains come to you, fear and pain as the [woman who] gives birth.

take you wives, to bear you sons and daughters; provide wives for your sons, and husbands for your daughters, that they may get sons and daughters, and that ye may multiply there. Labour not to be few,

‘Ask now, and see
Whether a man can give birth [to a child].
Why then do I see every man
With his hands on his loins, as a woman in labor?
Why have all faces turned pale?

Look, I'm bringing them from the northern region, and I'll gather them from the farthest parts of the earth. among them will be the blind and the lame, together with the pregnant woman and the woman in labor. A large group will return here.

Thus, saith Yahweh - Restrain thy voice from weeping, And thine eyes from tears, - For there is a reward for thy labour, Declareth Yahweh, So they shall return from the land of the enemy:

Kerioth will be taken, and the strongholds will be conquered, and the hearts of the warriors of Moab will be on that day like [the] heart of a woman [who] is in labor.

Look, like an eagle he will go up and he will swoop down, and he will spread out his wings against Bozrah. And the heart of the warriors of Edom will be in that day like [the] heart of a woman [who] is in labor.

Damascus has grown slack. She has turned away to flee and panic. Anxiety has seized [her], and labor pains have grasped her, like a woman in labor.

The king of Babylon has heard reports about them,
and his hands fall helpless.
Distress has seized him—
pain, like a woman in labor.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary.