12. Who is the wise man, that may understand this, and to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord may come that he may declare this, why the land hath perished, and is burnt up like a wilderness, which none passeth through?
13. And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law, which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, and have not walked in it.
14. But they have gone after the perverseness of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them.
15. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.
16. And I will scatter them among the nations, which they and their fathers have not known: and I will send the sword after them till they be consumed.
17. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come: and send to them that are wise women, and let them make haste:
18. Let them hasten and take up a lamentation for us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run down with waters.
19. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Sion: How are we wasted and greatly confounded? because we have left the land, because our dwellings are cast down.