³ And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy; for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

⁵ For thus saith the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.

⁶ Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?

⁷ Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.

¹⁵ While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

¹⁶ For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.

¹³ The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.

¹⁵ I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.

6 Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.

⁹ Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.

¹⁷ Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O Lord.

¹⁸ We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

³ Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

⁴ Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

⁸ Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

¹¹ When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.