Jeremiah 9:12-22

12Who is the wise man who may understand this [without any doubt]? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, so that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined, laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

13The Lord said, “Because they have turned away from My law which I set before them, and have not listened to and obeyed My voice nor walked in accordance with it,

14but have walked stubbornly after their [own] heart and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them,”

15therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them bitter and poisonous water to drink.

16I will [also] scatter them among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them until I have annihilated them.”

17Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Consider and call for the mourning women to come; Send for the wailing women to come.

18Let them hurry and take up a wailing for us, That our eyes may shed tears And our eyelids flow with water.

19For a sound of wailing is heard [coming] from Zion: ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly perplexed and utterly shamed, Because we have left the land, Because they have torn down our dwellings.’ ”

20Now hear the word of the Lord, O you women, And let your ear hear the word of His mouth; Teach your daughters a song of mourning, And each one [teach] her neighbor a dirge.

21For death has come up through our windows; It has entered our palaces, Cutting off the children from the streets And the young men from the town squares.

22Speak, “Thus says the Lord, ‘The dead bodies of men will fall like dung on the open field, And like sheaves [of grain] behind the reaper, And no one will gather them.’ ”