8. Should I not punish them for these deeds—oracle of the Lord;on a nation such as this should I not take vengeance?
9. Over the mountains I shall break out in cries of lamentation,over the pastures in the wilderness, in a dirge:They are scorched, and no one crosses them,no sound of lowing cattle;Birds of the air as well as beasts,all have fled and are gone.
10. I will turn Jerusalem into a heap of ruins,a haunt of jackals;The cities of Judah I will make a waste,where no one dwells.
11. Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken? Let him declare it!Why is the land ravaged,scorched like a wilderness no one crosses?
12. The Lord said: Because they have abandoned my law, which I set before them, and did not listen to me or follow it,
13. but followed instead their stubborn hearts and the Baals, as their ancestors had taught them,
14. therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: See now, I will give this people wormwood to eat and poisoned water to drink.
15. I will scatter them among nations whom neither they nor their ancestors have known; I will send the sword to pursue them until I have completely destroyed them.
16. Thus says the Lord of hosts:Inquire, and call the wailing women to come;summon the most skilled of them.
17. Let them come quicklyand raise for us a dirge,That our eyes may run with tears,our pupils flow with water.
18. The sound of the dirge is heard from Zion:We are ruined and greatly ashamed;We have left the land,given up our dwellings!
19. Hear, you women, the word of the Lord,let your ears receive the word of his mouth.Teach your daughters a dirge,and each other a lament:
20. Death has come up through our windows,has entered our citadels,To cut down children in the street,young people in the squares.
21. Corpses shall falllike dung in the open field,Like sheaves behind the harvester,with no one to gather them.