The eye of the tender and dainty woman among you, who would not have ventured to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and tenderness, will quiver with hostility toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son and her daughter,

and toward her afterbirth which comes forth from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she shall eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you in all your gates.

Arise, cry out in the night. At the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward Him for the life of your children who faint from hunger at the head of every street.

Behold, O Jehovah, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their offspring, children of their tender care? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Even the monsters draw out the breast to suckle their young. But the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

The tongue of the infant cleaves to the roof of his mouth in thirst; the young children ask for bread; there is none broken to them.

The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

O Jehovah, give them. What will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Samaria is held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword, their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped open.

But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!

For then there will be great affliction, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.

But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people.

For behold the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed.