Add parallel Print Page Options

10 People in Zion, you will have a lot of pain,
like a woman who is giving birth to a baby.
She rolls about and she screams with pain.
Soon you will have to leave your city and you will have to live in the fields.
You will have to go to Babylon,
but there the Lord will save you.
He will make you free again from the authority of your enemies.
11 But now, at this time, many countries have come together to attack your city.
They say: ‘We will destroy Jerusalem and we will enjoy ourselves.
We want to see Zion's people in trouble.’
12 But they do not know the Lord's thoughts.
They do not understand how he will punish them.
He will bring them together,
as people bring bundles of wheat together at harvest time.[a]
He will punish them,
as people thresh wheat to get the seeds out.[b]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 4:12 A bundle is many things that people have tied together (like wheat plants).
  2. 4:12 Wheat is a kind of plant that people grow on farms. They use the seeds to make flour for bread. To thresh means to hit wheat on the ground to get the seeds out.

10 Writhe in agony, Daughter Zion,
    like a woman in labor,
for now you must leave the city
    to camp in the open field.
You will go to Babylon;(A)
    there you will be rescued.
There the Lord will redeem(B) you
    out of the hand of your enemies.

11 But now many nations
    are gathered against you.
They say, “Let her be defiled,
    let our eyes gloat(C) over Zion!”
12 But they do not know
    the thoughts of the Lord;
they do not understand his plan,(D)
    that he has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.

Read full chapter