17. If you don’t listen to the Lord,I will cry secretly.Your pride will cause me to cry.I will cry painfully.My eyes will overflow with tears.This is because the Lord’s people will be captured.
18. Tell this to the king and queen mother:“Come down from your thrones.Your beautiful crownshave fallen from your heads.”
19. The cities in the desert of southern Judah are shut up.No one can open them.All Judah will be taken as captives to a foreign land.They will be carried away completely.
20. Jerusalem, look up and see.Someone comes from the north.Where is the flock God gave to you to care for?It is the flock you bragged about.
21. What will you say when they appoint as your headsthose you had thought were your friends?Won’t you have much pain and trouble?Your pain will be like that of a woman having a baby.
22. You might ask yourself,“Why has this happened to me?”It happened because of your many sins.Because of your sins, your skirt was torn offand your body has been treated badly.
23. A black man from Cush cannot change the color of his skin.A leopard cannot change his spots.In the same way, Jerusalem, you cannot change and do good.You always do evil.
24. “I will scatter you like chaff that is blown away by the desert wind.
25. This is what will happen to you.This is your part in my plans,” says the Lord.“This will happen because you forgot me.You have trusted in false gods.
26. Jerusalem, I will pull your skirts up over your face.Everyone will see you, and you will be ashamed.
27. I have seen the terrible things you have done.I know your acts of adultery and your snorting.I have seen you acting like a prostitute.I have seen your hated actson the hills and in the fields.How terrible it will be for you, Jerusalem.How long will you continue being unclean?”