12. Who is the wise man who may understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through it?
13. And the Lord says, Because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them, and have not listened to and obeyed My voice or walked in accordance with it
14. But have walked stubbornly after their own hearts and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them,
15. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them bitter and poisonous water to drink.
16. I will scatter them also among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword among them and after them until I have consumed them.
17. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skillful women to come.
18. Let them make haste and raise a wailing over us and for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush with water.
19. For a sound of wailing is heard [coming] out of Zion: How we are plundered and ruined! We are greatly confounded and utterly put to shame, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings [our dwellings that have cast us out].
20. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O you women, and let your ears receive the word of His mouth; teach your daughters a lament, and each one [teach] her neighbor a dirge.
21. For death has come up into our windows; it has entered into our palaces, cutting off the children from outdoors and the young men from the streets.
22. Speak, Thus says the Lord: The dead bodies of men shall fall like dung on the open field and like sheaves [of grain] behind the reaper, and none shall gather them. [Jer. 8:2.]
23. Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise and skillful person glory and boast in his wisdom and skill; let not the mighty and powerful person glory and boast in his strength and power; let not the person who is rich [in physical gratification and earthly wealth] glory and boast in his [temporal satisfactions and earthly] riches;
24. But let him who glories glory in this: that he understands and knows Me [personally and practically, directly discerning and recognizing My character], that I am the Lord, Who practices loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord. [I Cor. 1:31; II Cor. 10:17.]