Jeremiah 15:5–11

⁵“For who will have compassion on you, O Jerusalem,

or who will show sympathy to you,

or who will turn aside to ask about your welfare?^h

⁶You have forsaken me,” declaresⁱ Yahweh.

“You go backward, so I have stretched my hand against you,

and I have destroyed you.

I am tired of becoming remorseful.

⁷And I have winnowed them with a winnowing fork in the gates of the land.

I am bereaved.

I have destroyed my people.

They did not turn back from their ways.

⁸Their widows^j will be more numerous before me than the sand of the seas.

I have brought to them, against the mothers^k of young men,^l

a destroyer at noon.

I will suddenly drop on her anguish and horror.^m

⁹She who gave birth to seven has withered away.

She gasps her breath.

Her sun setⁿ while still day.

She has been put to shame and disgraced.

And the remainder of them I will give to the sword

before^o their enemies,” declares^p Yahweh.

Jeremiah’s Lament and Yahweh’s Response

¹⁰Woe to me, O my mother, that you gave birth to me,

a man of contention and quarreling to the whole land.^q

I have not lent out and I have not borrowed.^r

All of them are cursing me.

¹¹Yahweh said,

“Surely^s I will set you free to be good^t for you,

surely^u I will cause the enemy to intercede with you

in a time of trouble,

and in a time of distress.