20. Disaster on disaster is reported. So the whole land is ruined. My tents are suddenly ravaged, my curtains in an instant.
21. How long must I see the battle standard and hear the sound of the shofar?
22. “For My people are foolish. They do not know Me. They are senseless children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they do not know.”
23. I looked at the earth and behold, it was deserted and desolate, and at the heavens and they had no light.
24. I looked at the mountains— behold, they were shaking and all the hills swaying to and fro.
25. I looked and behold, no people! All the birds of the sky had fled.
26. I looked and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness and all of its cities were in ruins before Adonai, before His fierce anger.
27. For thus says Adonai, “The whole land will be wasteland, yet I will not totally destroy it.
28. Therefore, the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow black. For I have spoken, I have purposed, nor will I relent, nor turn from it.
29. At the sound of horsemen and archers the whole city flees. They go into the thickets and climb up on the rocks. The whole city is deserted— no one dwells in it.
30. And you, O desolate one, what will you do? Though you dress in scarlet, though you adorn yourself with gold ornaments though you enlarge your eyes with paint—in vain you make yourself beautiful— your lovers despise you, they seek your life.
31. For I heard a cry like one in labor, the anguish of one giving birth to her first child— the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands saying, “Oy , now to me! For my soul faints before murderers.”