9. Should I not punish them for these things?This is the Lord’s declaration.Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?
10. I will raise weeping and a lamentover the mountains,a dirge over the wilderness grazing land,for they have been so scorchedthat no one passes through.The sound of cattle is no longer heard.From the birds of the sky to the animals, everything has fled — they have gone away.
11. I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a jackals’ den. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,an uninhabited place.
12. Who is the man wise enough to understand this? Who has the Lord spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through?
13. The Lord said, “It is because they abandoned My instruction that I set in front of them and did not obey My voice or walk according to it.
14. Instead, they followed the stubbornness of their hearts and followed after the Baals as their fathers taught them.”
15. Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink.
16. I will scatter them among the nations that they and their fathers have not known. I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
17. This is what the Lord of Hosts says:Consider, and summon the women who mourn; send for the skillful women.
18. Let them come quickly to raise a lament over usso that our eyes may overflow with tears,our eyelids soaked with weeping.
19. For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion:How devastated we are.We are greatly ashamed, for we have abandoned the land;our dwellings have been torn down.
20. Now hear the word of the Lord, you women.Pay attention to the word of His mouth.Teach your daughters a lamentand one another a dirge,
21. for Death has climbed through our windows;it has entered our fortresses,cutting off children from the streets,young men from the squares.