Jeremiah 4:19–31

Jeremiah’s Sorrow for His People

¹⁹The pain! I can’t bear the pain!

My heart! My heart is beating wildly!

I can’t keep quiet;

I hear the trumpets

and the shouts of battle.

²⁰One disaster follows another;

the whole country is left in ruins.

Suddenly our tents are destroyed;

their curtains are torn to pieces.

²¹How long must I see the battle raging

and hear the blasts of trumpets?

²²The Lord says, “My people are stupid;

they don’t know me.

They are like foolish children;

they have no understanding.

They are experts at doing what is evil,

but failures at doing what is good.”

Jeremiah’s Vision of the Coming Destruction

²³I looked at the earth—it was a barren waste;

at the sky—there was no light.

²⁴I looked at the mountains—they were shaking,

and the hills were rocking to and fro.

²⁵I saw that there were no people;

even the birds had flown away.

²⁶The fertile land had become a desert;

its cities were in ruins

because of the Lord’s fierce anger.

²⁷(The Lord has said that the whole earth will become a wilderness, but that he will not completely destroy it.)

²⁸The earth will mourn;

the sky will grow dark.

The Lord has spoken

and will not change his mind.

He has made his decision

and will not turn back.

²⁹At the noise of the horsemen and bowmen

everyone will run away.

Some will run to the forest,

others will climb up among the rocks.

Every town will be left empty,

and no one will live in them again.

³⁰Jerusalem, you are doomed!

Why do you dress in scarlet?

Why do you put on jewellery and paint your eyes?

You are making yourself beautiful for nothing!

Your lovers have rejected you

and want to kill you.

³¹I heard a cry, like a woman in labour,

a scream like a woman bearing her first child.

It was the cry of Jerusalem gasping for breath,

stretching out her hand and saying,

“I am doomed! They are coming to kill me!”