19. For a voice of lamentation has been heard from Zion: 'How is it that we have been devastated and greatly confounded? Our tabernacles have been thrown down because we have forsaken the land.' "
20. "Therefore, listen, O women, to the word of the Lord! And let your ears take up the word of his mouth. And teach your daughters to lament. And let each one teach her neighbor to mourn:
21. 'For death has climbed through our windows. It has entered our houses to perish the little children from the outdoors, the youths from the streets.' "
22. "Speak: Thus says the Lord: And the corpses of men will fall like manure over the face of the countryside, and like hay behind the back of the reaper, and there will be no one to gather it."
23. Thus says the Lord: "The wise man should not glory in his wisdom, and the strong man should not glory in his strength, and the rich man should not glory in his riches.
24. But he who glories should glory in this: to know me and to know me well. For I am the Lord, who accomplishes mercy and judgment and justice upon the earth. For these things are pleasing to me, says the Lord.
25. Behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when I will visit upon all who are uncircumcised:
26. upon Egypt, and upon Judah, and upon Edom, and upon the sons of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all who have shaved off their hair, living in the desert. For all the nations are uncircumcised in body, but all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart."