9. Will I not punish them for these things?Will I not take revenge on a nation like this?I, the Lord, have spoken.”
10. I said, “I will mourn for the mountainsand weep for the pastures,because they have dried up,and no one travels through them.The sound of livestock is no longer heard;birds and wild animals have fled and gone.”
11. The Lord says, “I will make Jerusalem a pile of ruins,a place where jackals live;the cities of Judah will become a desert,a place where no one lives.”
12. I asked, “Lord, why is the land devastated and dry as a desert, so that no one travels through it? Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom have you explained it so that he can tell others?”
13. The Lord answered, “This has happened because my people have abandoned the teaching that I gave them. They have not obeyed me or done what I told them.
14. Instead, they have been stubborn and have worshipped the idols of Baal as their ancestors taught them to do.
15. So then, listen to what I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, will do: I will give my people bitter plants to eat and poison to drink.
16. I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have heard about, and I will send armies against them until I have completely destroyed them.”
17. The Lord Almighty said,“Think about what is happening!Call for the mourners to come,for the women who sing funeral songs.”
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.”