17 Gather your stuff and leave the land,

you who are living under siege

18 because Yahweh says this:

Listen, I’m flinging out the inhabitants of the land at this time,

and I’ll cause them distress so that they can find me.

19 Oh dear, poor me. My fracture, my wound is severe,

but I said that this is a sickness and I will endure it.

20 My tent has been devastated, and all of my tent ropes have been snapped.

My sons have gone off and left me.

There’s no one to pitch my tent again,

or to hang up my tent curtains.

21 Yes, the shepherds are stupid and haven’t asked Yahweh for direction

so therefore they haven’t prospered, and all their flock has been scattered.

22 Listen, it sounds like news has arrived

≈ plus there’s a loud rumble from a land in the north

coming to make Yehudah’s (Judah’s) cities into deserted places for jackals to live in.

23 Yahweh, I know that a person’s life pathway isn’t their own—

no one who walks, directs their own steps.

24 Discipline me, Yahweh, only in justice and not in anger

in case you reduce me to nothing.

25 Pour your fury out on the nations that don’t know you.

≈ and on the families that don’t call out to you to help them,

because they’ve consumed Ya’akov (Jacob).

≈ Yes, they’ve completely destroyed him and ruined his farmland.