18. The people said,“Tell them to hurry and sing a funeral song for us,until our eyes fill with tears,and our eyelids are wet from crying.”
19. Listen to the sound of crying in Zion,“We are ruined!We are completely disgraced!We must leave our land;our homes have been torn down.”
20. I said,“Listen to the Lord, you women,and pay attention to his words.Teach your daughters how to mourn,and your friends how to sing a funeral song.
21. Death has come in through our windowsand entered our palaces;it has cut down the children in the streetsand the young men in the market places.
22. Dead bodies are scattered everywhere,like piles of manure on the fields,like corn cut and left behind by the reapers,corn that no one gathers.This is what the Lord has told me to say.”
23. The Lord says,“The wise should not boast of their wisdom,nor the strong of their strength,nor the rich of their wealth.
24. If anyone wants to boast,he should boast that he knows and understands me,because my love is constant,and I do what is just and right.These are the things that please me.I, the Lord, have spoken.”
25-26. The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will punish the people of Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and the desert people, who have their hair cut short. All these people are circumcised, but have not kept the covenant it symbolizes. None of these people and none of the people of Israel have kept my covenant.”