Jeremiah 15:5–11

⁵Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem,

or who will bemoan you?

Who will turn aside

to ask about your welfare?

⁶You have rejected me, says the Lord;

you are going backward,

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

I am weary of relenting.^*

⁷I have winnowed them with a winnowing fork

in the gates of the land;

I have bereaved them; I have destroyed my people;

they did not turn from their ways.^*

⁸Their widows became more numerous

than the sand of the seas;

I have brought against the mothers of youths

a destroyer at noonday;

I have made anguish and terror

fall upon her suddenly.

⁹She who bore seven has languished;

she has swooned away;

her 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,

says the Lord.^*

Jeremiah Complains Again and Is Reassured

¹⁰Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me.^{* 11}The Lord said: Surely I have intervened in your life^e for good; surely I have brought enemies upon you^f in a time of trouble and in a time of distress.^*