²³ How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people.

²⁹ For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’^(A)

¹⁷ How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!^(A)

¹⁹ How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!^(A)

¹⁷ For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household;^(A) and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?^(B)

Warning to Rich Oppressors

5 Now listen,^(A) you rich people,^(B) weep and wail^(C) because of the misery that is coming on you.

²⁶ If we deliberately keep on sinning^(A) after we have received the knowledge of the truth,^(B) no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷ but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire^(C) that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸ Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.^{(D) 29} How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God^(E) underfoot,^(F) who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant^(G) that sanctified them,^(H) and who has insulted the Spirit^(I) of grace?^{(J) 30} For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”^[a](K) and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”^{[b](L) 31} It is a dreadful thing^(M) to fall into the hands^(N) of the living God.^(O)

¹⁶ in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles^(A) so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit.^(B) The wrath of God has come upon them at last.^[a]