11. I will reduce Jerusalem to ruins,a den for wild dogs.I will make the towns of Judah a wasteland, without inhabitant.
12. Who is wise enough to understand this?Who has been taught by the Lordand can therefore explain it?Why has the land been reduced to rubbleand laid waste like a desert,with no one passing through?
13. The Lord says: It is because they have abandoned my Instruction that I gave them, and haven’t obeyed or followed it.
14. Instead, they have followed their own willful hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.
15. Therefore, this is what the Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, says: I’m going to feed this people bitter food and give them poison to drink.
16. I will scatter them among nations about whom neither they nor their ancestors have ever heard. I will pursue them with the sword until all are gone.
17. The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:Pay attention!Summon the women who mourn,let them come;send for those best trained,let them come.
18. Hurry!Let them weep for usso that our eyes fill up with tearsand water streams down.
19. The sound of sobbingis heard from Zion:"We’re devastated!We’re so ashamed!We have to leave the landand abandon our homes!"