Esther 5:12

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”

A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer will come on him.

Let destruction come on him unawares. Let his net that he has hidden catch himself. Let him fall into that destruction.

for a righteous man falls seven times and rises up again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.

But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.

Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice,

The king of Israel answered, “Tell him, ‘Don’t let him who puts on his armor brag like he who takes it off.’ ”

Don’t boast about tomorrow; for you don’t know what a day may bring.

The inhabitants of this coast land will say in that day, ‘Behold, this is our expectation, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria. And we, how will we escape?’ ”

But the multitude of your foes will be like fine dust, and the multitude of the ruthless ones like chaff that blows away. Yes, it will be in an instant, suddenly.

But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments.

Therefore disaster will come on you. You won’t know when it dawns. Mischief will fall on you. You won’t be able to put it away. Desolation will come on you suddenly, which you don’t understand.

Ask now, and see whether a man travails with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned pale?

and I will bring back all the people to you. The man whom you seek is as if all returned. All the people shall be in peace.”

You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day,

for he is our God. We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep in his care. Today, oh that you would hear his voice!

Therefore his calamity will come suddenly. He will be broken suddenly, and that without remedy.

For man also doesn’t know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it.

Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I so am dismayed that I can’t see.

Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before you, Yahweh.

Have you utterly rejected Judah? Has your soul loathed Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!

I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” ’

A woman, when she gives birth, has sorrow because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she doesn’t remember the anguish any more, for the joy that a human being is born into the world.

who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation—which at the first having been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard,

But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.

Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city!” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.

In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see.

and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry.

So they sat down, ate, and drank, both of them together. Then the young lady’s father said to the man, “Please be pleased to stay all night, and let your heart be merry.”

Ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel came over against Gibeah, and the battle was severe; but they didn’t know that disaster was close to them.

The men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were dismayed; for they saw that disaster had come on them.

Then Samuel said, “Bring Agag the king of the Amalekites here to me!” Agag came to him cheerfully. Agag said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”

Moreover Yahweh will deliver Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines; and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Yahweh will deliver the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.”

When he had brought him down, behold, they were spread around over all the ground, eating, drinking, and dancing, because of all the great plunder that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines, and out of the land of Judah.

Then Joab said, “I’m not going to wait like this with you.” He took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the middle of the oak.

For the waves of death surrounded me. The floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

Jehu drew his bow with his full strength, and struck Joram between his arms; and the arrow went out at his heart, and he sunk down in his chariot.

His strength will be famished. Calamity will be ready at his side.

Therefore snares are around you. Sudden fear troubles you,

God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways.

Is it not calamity to the unrighteous, and disaster to the workers of iniquity?

He says in his heart, “I shall not be shaken. For generations I shall have no trouble.”

Trembling took hold of them there, pain, as of a woman in travail.

Let their table before them become a snare. May it become a retribution and a trap.

How they are suddenly destroyed! They are completely swept away with terrors.

when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when your disaster comes on like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you.

The wicked is brought down in his calamity, but in death, the righteous has a refuge.

Whoever walks blamelessly is kept safe; but one with perverse ways will fall suddenly.

He who is often rebuked and stiffens his neck will be destroyed suddenly, with no remedy.

But the destruction of transgressors and sinners shall be together, and those who forsake Yahweh shall be consumed.

They will be dismayed. Pangs and sorrows will seize them. They will be in pain like a woman in labor. They will look in amazement one at another. Their faces will be faces of flame.

My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.

therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant.

“Come,” say they, “I will get wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be as today, great beyond measure.”

Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”

We have heard its report. Our hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labor.

What will you say, when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?

Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!

When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says Yahweh.

I will make her princes, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk. They will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

In the same hour, the fingers of a man’s hand came out and wrote near the lamp stand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace. The king saw the part of the hand that wrote.

In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain.

For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.

‘Behold, you scoffers, and wonder, and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which you will in no way believe, if one declares it to you.’ ”

for he says, “At an acceptable time I listened to you. In a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape.

to the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,

The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him. He is an unwise son; for when it is time, he doesn’t come to the opening of the womb.

You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna?

For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved for judgment;