²³ O you who are living in Lebanon, making your living-place in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied will you be when pains come on you, as on a woman in childbirth!

²⁴ The news of it has come to our ears; our hands have become feeble: trouble has come on us and pain, like the pain of a woman in childbirth.

⁶ For this is what the Lord has said about the family of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, and the top of Lebanon: but, truly, I will make you waste, with towns unpeopled.

³⁰ And you, when you are made waste, what will you do? Though you are clothed in red, though you make yourself beautiful with ornaments of gold, though you make your eyes wide with paint, it is for nothing that you make yourself fair; your lovers have no more desire for you, they have designs on your life.

³¹ A voice has come to my ears like the voice of a woman in birth-pains, the pain of one giving birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, fighting for breath, stretching out her hands, saying, Now sorrow is mine! for my strength is gone from me before the takers of life.

¹ Let your doors be open, O Lebanon, so that fire may be burning among your cedars.

² Give a cry of grief, O fir-tree, for the fall of the cedar, because the great ones have been made low: give cries of grief, O you oaks of Bashan, for the strong trees of the wood have come down.

⁹ A curse on him who gets evil profits for his family, so that he may put his resting-place on high and be safe from the hand of the wrongdoer!

⁴ Though you go up on high like an eagle, though your house is placed among the stars, I will make you come down from there, says the Lord.

² Even if they go deep into the underworld, my hand will take them up from there; if they go up to heaven, I will get them down:

¹⁴ And they have not made prayer to me in their hearts, but they make loud cries on their beds; they are cutting themselves for food and wine, they are turned against me.

¹⁵ I will go back to my place till they are made waste; in their trouble they will go after me early and will make search for me.

¹ Come, let us go back to the Lord; for he has given us wounds and he will make us well; he has given blows and he will give help.

⁴ In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping and making prayer to the Lord their God.

⁵ They will be questioning about the way to Zion, with their faces turned in its direction, saying, Come, and be united to the Lord in an eternal agreement which will be kept in mind for ever.

¹⁶ ... the pride of your heart has been a false hope, O you who are living in the cracks of the rock, keeping your place on the top of the hill: even if you made your living-place as high as the eagle, I would make you come down, says the Lord.

²⁸ O people of Moab, go away from the towns and take cover in the rock; be like the dove of the Arabah, which makes her living-place in holes.

⁵ This is what the Lord has said: A voice of shaking fear has come to our ears, of fear and not of peace.

⁶ Put the question and see if it is possible for a man to have birth-pains: why do I see every man with his hands gripping his sides, as a woman does when the pains of birth are on her, and all faces are turned green?

¹³ See, I am against you, you who are living on the rock of the valley, says the Lord; you who say, Who will come down against us? or who will get into our houses?

²¹ A voice is sounding on the open hilltops, the weeping and the prayers of the children of Israel; because their way is twisted, they have not kept the Lord their God in mind.

²¹ And looking on the Kenites he went on with his story and said, Strong is your living-place, and your secret place is safe in the rock.