Therefore I am filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pain of a woman in labor. I am too perplexed to hear, too dismayed to see.

My heart staggers; horror terrifies me. He has turned my last glimmer of hope into sheer terror.

As a pregnant woman about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pains, so we were before You, LORD.

They looked, and froze with fear; they fled in terror.

Trembling seized them there, agony like that of a woman in labor,

Ask and see whether a male can give birth. Why then do I see every man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor and every face turned pale?

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

At that moment the fingers of a man's hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the king's palace wall next to the lampstand. As the king watched the hand that was writing,

his face turned pale, and his thoughts so terrified him that his hip joints shook and his knees knocked together.

When they say, "Peace and security," then sudden destruction comes on them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

Nations writhe in horror before them; all faces turn pale.

Desolation, decimation, devastation! Hearts melt, knees tremble, loins shake, every face grows pale!