Jeremiah 15:5–11

^5z“Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem,

^zor who will grieve for you?

Who will turn aside

to ask about your welfare?

^6aYou have rejected me, declares the Lord;

^byou keep going backward,

so I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you—

^cI am weary of relenting.

^7dI have winnowed them with ^ea winnowing fork

in the gates of the land;

I have bereaved them; I have destroyed my people;

^fthey did not turn from their ways.

⁸I have made their widows more in number

than ^gthe sand of the seas;

I have brought against the mothers of young men

a destroyer at noonday;

I have made anguish and terror

fall upon them suddenly.

^9hShe who bore seven has grown feeble;

ⁱshe has fainted away;

^jher sun went down while it was yet day;

she has been shamed and disgraced.

And the rest of them I will give to the sword

before their enemies,

declares the Lord.”

Jeremiah’s Complaint

^10kWoe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! ^lI have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me. ¹¹The Lord said, “Have I not¹ set you free for their good? Have I not pleaded for you before the enemy in the time of trouble and in the time of distress?