What will you say ¹  when the Lord ²  appoints as rulers over you those allies that you, yourself, had actually prepared as such? ³  Then anguish and agony will grip you like that of a woman giving birth to a baby. ⁴ 

I will force you and your mother who gave you birth into exile. You will be exiled to ¹  a country where neither of you were born, and you will both die there.

The king of Babylon will become paralyzed with fear ¹  when he hears news of their coming. ²  Anguish will grip him, agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby. ³ 

and say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.

As for your birth, on the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water; ¹  you were certainly not rubbed down with salt, nor wrapped with blankets. ² 

Oholah was the name of the older and Oholibah ¹  the name of her younger sister. They became mine, and gave birth to sons and daughters. ²  Oholah is Samaria and Oholibah is Jerusalem.

All the birds of the sky nested in its boughs; under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth, in its shade all the great ¹  nations lived.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, ¹  she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

For nation will rise up in arms ¹  against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines. ²  These are but the beginning of birth pains.

for he will be great in the sight of ¹  the Lord. He ²  must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. ³ 

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in strips of cloth ¹  and laid him in a manger, ²  because there was no place for them in the inn. ³ 

When a woman gives birth, she has distress ¹  because her time ²  has come, but when her child is born, she no longer remembers the suffering because of her joy that a human being ³  has been born into the world. ⁴ 

And a man lame ¹  from birth ²  was being carried up, who was placed at the temple gate called “the Beautiful Gate” every day ³  so he could beg for money ⁴  from those going into the temple courts. ⁵ 

he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit,

Blessed be ¹  the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he gave us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

So ¹  the woman gave birth to a son, a male child, ²  who is going to rule ³  over all the nations ⁴  with an iron rod. ⁵  Her ⁶  child was suddenly caught up to God and to his throne,

The Nephilim ¹  were on the earth in those days (and also after this) ²  when the sons of God were having sexual relations with ³  the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. ⁴  They were the mighty heroes ⁵  of old, the famous men. ⁶ 

Laban replied ¹  to Jacob, “These women ²  are my daughters, these children are my grandchildren, ³  and these flocks are my flocks. All that you see belongs to me. But how can I harm these daughters of mine today ⁴  or the children to whom they have given birth?

He said to me, ‘Look, you will conceive and have a son. ¹  So now, do not drink wine or beer and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean. ²  For the child will be dedicated ³  to God from birth till the day he dies.’”

So now the Lord says, the one who formed me from birth ¹  to be his servant – he did this ²  to restore Jacob to himself, so that Israel might be gathered to him; and I will be honored ³  in the Lord’s sight, for my God is my source of strength ⁴  –