Jeremiah 9:10-21

10“I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair for jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a wasteland without inhabitant.

11Who is the one wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of Adonai spoken that he may explain it? Why is the land ruined, laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?”

12Adonai said “It is because they have forsaken My Torah that I set before them. They have neither obeyed My voice nor walked according to it,

13but have walked after the stubbornness of their heart, and after the Baalim that their fathers taught them.

14Therefore, thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Israel, “look, I will make this people eat wormwood and drink poisoned water.

15I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will pursue them with the sword, until I have finished with them.”

16Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot: “Pay attention! Call the dirge-singers and let them come. Send for the most skillful wailers and let them come!”

17“Let them come quickly and lift up a wailing over us so our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush with water.”

18For a wailing voice is heard from Zion: “How we are ruined! We are utterly ashamed— we have forsaken the land, for they tore down our dwellings.”

19Now, hear the word of Adonai, O women, let your ear receive the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters wailing and everyone her neighbor a dirge.

20For death has climbed through our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off children from the street and young men from the squares.”

21“Say this,” declares Adonai. “The carcasses of men will lie like dung on the open field, like cut grain behind the reaper, with no one gathering them.”