Jeremiah 13:21
“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?”
What does Jeremiah 13:21 mean?
Jeremiah is confronting Judah with a hard truth: the very allies they've cultivated and trained will become their rulers and oppressors. The image of a woman in labor pains captures the severity of what's coming, not as a distant threat but as imminent agony. This isn't meant to shame them into obedience so much as to help them see how their own choices have set them on a collision course with suffering. There's almost a tragic inevitability here, as if Jeremiah is asking them to face what they've already set in motion by turning away from God.