On that day the lamentation in Jerusalem will be as great as the lamentation at Hadad-Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

In all the vineyards there will be wailing, for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord.

Then you turned my lament into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and covered me with joy.

At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning, for shaved heads and sackcloth.

they will tear out their hair because of you and put on sackcloth, and they will weep bitterly over you with intense mourning.

“Yet even now,” the Lord says, “return to me with all your heart – with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just your garments!”

Because of Israel’s sins this is what the Lord, the God who commands armies, the sovereign One, says: “In all the squares there will be wailing, in all the streets they will mourn the dead. They will tell the field workers to lament and the professional mourners to wail.

When they came to the threshing floor of Atad on the other side of the Jordan, they mourned there with very great and bitter sorrow. There Joseph observed a seven day period of mourning for his father.

So I said, “Oh, my dear people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with painful sobs as though you had lost your only child. For any moment now that destructive army will come against us.”

On all the housetops in Moab and in all its public squares there will be nothing but mourning. For I will break Moab like an unwanted jar. I, the Lord, affirm it!

For this reason I will mourn and wail; I will walk around barefoot and without my outer garments. I will howl like a wild dog, and screech like an owl.

Throughout each and every province where the king’s edict and law were announced there was considerable mourning among the Jews, along with fasting, weeping, and sorrow. Sackcloth and ashes were characteristic of many.