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.
20. Hear therefore, ye women, the word of the Lord: and let your ears receive the word of his mouth: and teach your daughters wailing: and every one her neighbor mourning.
21. For death is come up through our windows, it is entered into our houses to destroy the children from without, the young men from the streets.
22. Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Even the carcass of man shall fall as dung upon the face of the country, and as grass behind the back of the mower, and there is none to gather it.
23. Thus saith the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches:
24. But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, for I am the Lord that exercise mercy, and judgment, and justice in the earth: for these things please me, saith the Lord.