Jeremiah 9:10–21

¹⁰I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains,

a dirge over the wilderness pasture,

for they have been scorched so no one passes through,

and the lowing of cattle is not heard.

Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled;

they have gone away.

¹¹“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble,

a haunt for jackals;^c

and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,

without inhabitant.”

¹²Who is the man wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a desert, so no one can pass through it?

¹³And the LORD answered, “It is because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them; they have not walked in it or obeyed My voice. ¹⁴Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”

¹⁵Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink. ¹⁶I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”

¹⁷This is what the LORD of Hosts says:

“Take note, and summon the wailing women;

send for the most skillful among them.

¹⁸Let them come quickly

and take up a lament over us,

that our eyes may overflow with tears,

and our eyelids may gush with water.

¹⁹For the sound of wailing

is heard from Zion:

‘How devastated we are!

How great is our shame!

For we have abandoned the land

because our dwellings have been torn down.’”

²⁰Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD.

Open your ears to the word of His mouth.

Teach your daughters to wail,

and one another to lament.

²¹For death has climbed in through our windows;

it has entered our fortresses

to cut off the children from the streets,

the young men from the town squares.