Jeremiah 4:19–31

¹⁹My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at the walls of my heart, Make a noise for me doth My heart, I am not silent, For the voice of a trumpet I have heard, O my soul—a shout of battle! ²⁰Destruction on destruction is proclaimed, For spoiled hath been all the land, Suddenly spoiled have been my tents, In a moment—my curtains. ²¹Till when do I see an ensign? Do I hear the voice of a trumpet? ²²For my people are foolish, me they have not known, Foolish sons are they, yea, they are not intelligent, Wise are they to do evil, And to do good they have not known. ²³I looked to the land, and lo, waste and void, And unto the heavens, and their light is not. ²⁴I have looked to the mountains, And lo, they are trembling. And all the hills moved themselves lightly. ²⁵I have looked, and lo, man is not, And all fowls of the heavens have fled. ²⁶I have looked, and lo, The fruitful place is a wilderness, And all its cities have been broken down, Because of Jehovah, Because of the fierceness of His anger. ²⁷For thus said Jehovah: All the land is a desolation, but a completion I make not. ²⁸For this doth the land mourn, And black have been the heavens above, because I have spoken—I have purposed, And I have not repented, Nor do I turn back from it. ²⁹From the voice of the horseman, And of him shooting with the bow, all the city is fleeing, They have come into thickets, And on cliffs they have gone up, All the city is forsaken, And there is no one dwelling in them. ³⁰And thou, O spoiled one, what dost thou? For thou puttest on scarlet, For thou adornest thyself with ornaments of gold. For thou rendest with pain thine eyes, In vain thou dost make thyself fair, Kicked against thee have doting ones, Thy life they do seek. ³¹For a voice as of a sick woman I have heard, Distress, as of one bringing forth a first-born, The voice of the daughter of Zion, She bewaileth herself, she spreadeth out her hands, ‘Woe to me now, for weary is my soul of slayers!’

Chapter 5