Lamentation for Judah

19 My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain!

Oh, the pain in my chest!

My heart pounds within me;

I cannot be silent.

For I have heard the sound of the horn,

the alarm of battle.

20 Disaster after disaster is proclaimed,

for the whole land is laid waste.

My tents are destroyed in an instant,

my curtains in a moment.

21 How long must I see the signal flag

and hear the sound of the horn?

22 “For My people are fools;

they have not known Me.

They are foolish children,

without understanding.

They are skilled in doing evil,

but they know not how to do good.”

23 I looked at the earth,

and it was formless and void;

[I looked] to the heavens,

and they [had] no light.

24 I looked at the mountains,

and behold, they were quaking;

all the hills were swaying.

25 I looked, and no man was left;

all the birds of the air had fled.

26 I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert.

All its cities were torn down

before the LORD,

before His fierce anger.

27 For this is what the LORD says:

“The whole land will be desolate,

but I will not finish its destruction.

28 Therefore the earth will mourn

[and] the heavens above will grow dark.

I have spoken, I have planned,

and I will not relent or turn back.”

29 Every city flees

at the sound of the horseman and archer.

They enter the thickets

and climb among the rocks.

Every city is abandoned;

no inhabitant is left.

30 And you, O devastated one, what will you do,

though you dress yourself in scarlet,

though you adorn yourself with gold jewelry,

though you enlarge your eyes with paint?

You adorn yourself in vain; your lovers despise you;

they want to take your life.

31 For I hear a cry like a woman in labor,

a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—

the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath,

stretching out her hands [to say],

“Woe is me

for my soul faints before the murderers!”